House Democrats intend to open investigations into President Donald Trump's family crypto businesses after taking control of Congress in January, with World Liberty Financial, the venture's Emirati investor and the pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao at the top of their list.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, set to chair the House Oversight Committee, answered an Associated Press call with a two-word statement at 3:18 a.m.: “Lawyer up.” His office said Garcia plans to pursue what it calls the “Trump Crime Family” alongside corporate corruption, immigration enforcement abuses and the Epstein files.

Speaking to Punchbowl News, Garcia said the committee will examine the family's crypto deals, Donald Trump Jr.'s business dealings and relatives such as Jared Kushner “sitting on boards and getting contracts.”

The key change from the past two years is subpoena power. Democrats have written letters, requested Treasury probes and held shadow hearings; the majority allows them to compel documents and testimony from the administration and from private companies without the president's consent. Reuters reported in September that inquiries could begin as early as February, with corporate donors to the White House ballroom and firms that did deals with Trump relatives among the first targets. The Washington Post likewise reported ahead of the vote that Democrats were planning sweeping probes if they won Congress.

World Liberty Financial first in line

World Liberty Financial, the DeFi and stablecoin venture the Trump family launched in September 2024, is expected to be examined first. Democrats have focused on a $500 million investment by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE national security adviser, whose vehicle took a reported 49% stake shortly before the January 2025 inauguration.

The stake carries weight because World Liberty is seeking a federal trust bank charter for its USD1 stablecoin — a charter that would place the stablecoin issuer under the OCC's direct federal supervision. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approval on Aug. 14, with final sign-off pending. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tahnoon's group and a Trump-affiliated entity together control about 87% of the bank's holding company.

Earlier efforts carried no legal force. In February, House Democrats asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate the deal and sought suspicious activity reports — filings financial institutions submit to regulators to flag potentially illicit transactions — tied to the family's ventures. Senate Democrats on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Richard Blumenthal, opened their own inquiry into the TRUMP token and World Liberty earlier this year.

The Zhao pardon

The second target is the October 2025 pardon of Zhao, whose exchange helped launch USD1 and was hacked for $6.34 billion last week. Zhao has said he has no business ties to the Trump family and did not discuss clemency with them.

Trump's 2025 financial disclosure listed more than $1 billion in crypto-related income, including about $635 million in royalties from the TRUMP memecoin; Reuters put the family's crypto earnings at $2.3 billion or more.

What the probes can and cannot do

The investigations will not produce legislation. Trump has said he could become “Mr. Veto,” and Democrats lack the two-thirds majority in either chamber to override him. The White House dismissed the plans before the vote, with spokeswoman Lauren Bis calling them a “decade long witch hunt.”

Democrats expect the administration to invoke executive privilege — the doctrine that lets a president withhold internal White House deliberations from Congress — and slow-walk requests, as it did in Trump's first term, and plan instead to subpoena private entities tied to the family. The near-term markers are the OCC's final decision on World Liberty's charter and the first inquiries, which Reuters reported could begin as early as February.

For crypto, the damage would be political rather than statutory. TD Cowen's Jaret Seiberg wrote Wednesday that the investigations “may make it impossible to advance a version of Clarity that the crypto sector could back,” a reference to the Clarity Act, the crypto market-structure bill that would divide digital asset oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Bloomberg Intelligence has flagged crypto, defense and technology as the sectors most exposed to probes.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Micah Zimmerman.