WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump told "60 Minutes" this week he knew “nothing” about the World Liberty Financial crypto company that helped him take in more than $2 billion last year alone.
Democrats who’ll take control of Congress in January have big plans to find out more.
The incoming heads of various oversight committees are already naming a broad array of investigative targets regarding Trump’s personal and administrative actions. They’re demanding records, promising subpoenas – and warning people and companies not to destroy any documents.
"If you are a member of the Trump crime family and you're grifting off the American public, you should lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-California, who is poised to chair the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee in January, told MS NOW's Lawrence O'Donnell two days after the Democrats’ Nov. 3 blowout win in the midterms.
In response, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told USA TODAY: “If Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”
This week, White House Counsel Will Scharf warned Garcia that aggressive oversight of the Trump administration and threats against administration officials “may cross the line into blatant criminality,” especially if their investigations are used to “harass and aggrandize” as opposed to advancing legitimate legislative policies.
Garcia wasted no time in replying, saying in a statement posted to X: "It appears Donald Trump has something to hide. Let's be clear: Congress' authority comes from Article I of the Constitution, not from the permission of the White House. Congress has wide latitude to conduct investigations and oversight, an authority inherent in the power to legislate.”
Garcia told Punchbowl News his committee will look at the Trump family's crypto deals, Donald Trump Jr.'s business dealings and family members, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, who are "sitting on boards and getting contracts." Garcia has also asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate whether companies linked to Trump’s two eldest sons won defense contracts.
The Trump family's cryptocurrency ventures are likely to be the first target in both the House and Senate, with the president's financial disclosure filing and news reports estimating those ventures have brought Trump and his family more than $1.4 billion in 2025.
That’s especially the case for World Liberty, which Trump co-founded in September 2024 with his sons and the sons of his Middle East and Russia-Ukraine war envoy, Steve Witkoff. Trump said his sons run it.
Democrats want answers, for instance, about how much Trump made off the crypto venture, how much he knew about its business dealings – and how a $500 million deal first reported by The Wall Street Journal went down.
The Journal reported in January that an investor linked to the United Arab Emirates government secretly signed a deal to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty just before Trump's inauguration. The UAE has since been seeking favorable treatment from the Trump administration on a number of important issues, including the purchase of advanced AI computer chips.
The president’s own sales of a Trump-branded memecoin, international real estate deals involving the Trump Organization and special access to the president for top memecoin investors are also seen as early avenues of investigative inquiry, Democrats said.
Trump's pardon of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, whose company helped the Trump family launch a stablecoin, has been a target of Garcia and other Democrats long before their sweeping victory in the midterms.
What Trump said about his family's finances
For years, Democrats in the House and Senate have been publicly accusing Trump and his family of corruptly profiting from business dealings linked to foreign governments.
Trump pledged before his first term in office that the Trump Organization would not seek or enter into any new foreign business deals while he was in the White House. He made no such promise this time around.
In a Nov. 8 interview on "60 Minutes," Ross Douthat asked whether Trump would call it corrupt if former President Joe Biden was part owner of a company like World Liberty Financial “and it has all of these investments from the Middle East.”
"Here's the difference," Trump replied. "I'm gonna tell you why. Because I know nothing about it."
Asked why he didn't simply divest to protect himself from accusations of corruption, Trump said his sons run the family business: “It's hard to say to them, 'Don't do anything anymore for four years because I'm president.’”
Douthat pointed to a Forbes estimate that Trump's net worth has grown by $3 billion since retaking the White House.
"I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don't care," Trump said. “I make – I have a lot of money, and far more than I ever thought I'd have. And I guess it's gone up. I don't even know.”
Trump also said he has “a son who's a very straight, good guy. He watches over money. I don't even talk to him about it."
Asked whether foreign investors in his companies including World Liberty believe they’re “buying influence” to get things they want from the U.S. government, Trump replied: "I don't know.”
Other Democrats are planning to investigate Trump
Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure declared that the president brought in $2.2 billion in 2025, with the bulk coming from $1.4 billion through the crypto industry. That includes more than $750 million from World Liberty Financial and $635 million in royalties and sales tied to his $TRUMP meme coin. Real estate assets and other holdings accounted for the rest of the president's 2025 income, which was more than three times the $622 million that his business ventures generated in 2024, according to The New York Times.
Kushner, whose private equity firm Affinity Partners manages more than $6 billion, has drawn about 99% of that money from foreign sources, including $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and funds linked to the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, according to an April letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. Democrats say that’s especially concerning because Kushner has served as a key U.S. negotiator in the Middle East, including on Gaza and the war with Iran.
Raskin, expected to chair the House Judiciary Committee, has said Democrats would subpoena the Trump family over its deals involving Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, including the "$400 million jet from Qatar" that Trump accepted.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the incoming chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent records request letters two days after the election to World Liberty, Fight Fight Fight LLC – which runs the $TRUMP coin with a Trump Organization affiliate – and the crypto firms Binance and Tether.
"Failure to voluntarily produce the requested records and information by January 4, 2027, will leave the Subcommittee with no choice but to consider alternative measures to obtain compliance," Blumenthal’s letters said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, expected to chair the Senate Finance Committee, posted one word on election night: "Subpoenas." In a statement outlining his agenda, Wyden said special interests that have "worked hand-in-hand with Trump" will "be forced to answer to the Senate Finance Committee for their role in hurting the American people and enabling Trump's corruption."
Democrats acknowledge that Trump’s Justice Department is unlikely to enforce any consequences for those who don’t cooperate with their oversight efforts.
But the Democrats, Garcia said, will also “have the power of contempt charges. And contempt charges not only go to the DOJ, there's also a civil contempt process that goes to the courts.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats are preparing to probe the Trump family's finances
