A shareholder of Circle, the fintech company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed a lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump, alleging unconstitutional profits from cryptocurrency deals tied to the United Arab Emirates.

The suit was filed on Thursday by J. Benjamin Greenberg, a Circle shareholder and former employee of the company. It alleges that a member of the UAE ruling family agreed to pay half a billion dollars into World Liberty Financial, the Trump-backed crypto venture, in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution bars federal officials from accepting payments or gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval — a prohibition known as the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

The legal action lands as U.S. regulators move ahead with pro-crypto rules, even though lawmakers last month blocked landmark digital asset legislation that President Trump had backed. Several lawmakers withheld support for the draft bill — the Clarity Act, which aims to set a regulatory framework for digital assets — saying the Trump family had illicitly cashed in on crypto ventures. The new suit adds a legal front to that scrutiny as the bill remains stalled.

"The corruption at issue is not subtle, and it is not hidden," the lawsuit alleges. "Since returning to office, President Donald J. Trump and his family have built a cryptocurrency business and invited foreign states to route money to him by paying into it. Foreign money has answered."

According to the complaint, an investment fund created by the government of Abu Dhabi also gave the president $2 billion via World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin product. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a fixed value against a traditional currency such as the U.S. dollar. World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance project co-founded by the president and his sons. Trump ceased involvement in the project after taking office in 2025.

Thursday's lawsuit further alleges that the president granted the Emirati leadership access to advanced artificial intelligence chips and pardoned a convicted felon in exchange for the crypto investment. The filing references a February Wall Street Journal article that reported the deal.

"Although the President has dressed his corrupt arrangements in the language of new technology — tokens and stablecoins, holding companies and reserve yields — that vocabulary must not obscure what this is: the oldest form of public corruption, a public official taking money from a foreign power," the lawsuit says.

The complaint alleges the president has "corruptly" profited from $2 billion via the deals. President Trump, World Liberty, and U.S. Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are named as defendants. The claims are allegations set out in a court filing and have not been tested in court.

Trump campaigned on a platform of supporting the crypto industry and received major financial backing from the sector, but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures. Trump and the White House have consistently denied any conflicts of interest. In August, ahead of the Clarity Act vote, the president said that Democrats criticizing his family's crypto ventures had made money from stock trading. The case will now move through the courts, where its progress will unfold alongside congressional debates over the Clarity Act.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Mathew Di Salvo.