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OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould told the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday that the sole political pressure his agency has felt over World Liberty Financial's national trust-bank charter application is coming from Democrats, not President Trump. Responding directly to Representative Gregory Meeks's question about whether he was "working for the American people or working as a Trump fixer," Gould said, "Your attempts to continue to pressure me are the only political pressure I've felt from anyone other than your Senate colleagues," echoing similar complaints he had lodged against Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Gould confirmed the OCC is following ethics laws as it processes World Liberty Trust Company's application, and insisted the agency will decide the charter under the statute governing national trust banks. Democrats on the committee argue that World Liberty's ties to foreign investors and crypto counterparties previously linked to illicit activity — including global exchange Binance — make the firm unfit for a US banking charter, and that a Trump appointee should not be adjudicating a bid from a business partially owned by the president and his family.
Why it matters
The hearing put two of the Trump-era crypto agenda's hottest items on the same stage: the politically radioactive World Liberty charter, and the regulator-by-regulator rollout of the GENIUS Act stablecoin framework. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Travis Hill said another stablecoin rule — a customer-identification-program requirement for issuers — is coming "in the very near future," and National Credit Union Administration Chair Kyle Hauptman used his testimony to make the bullish case that stablecoin rails could let US payments settle every day, not just business days. Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, countered that allowing government payments in stablecoins would "sanctify an alternative to the US dollar" and warned that the GENIUS Act's ban on interest paid to holders is already being engineered around by top law firms.
Frequently asked questions
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What is World Liberty Financial and why is its bank charter controversial?
World Liberty Financial Inc. is a crypto firm tied to President Donald Trump and his family. It is applying for a national trust-bank charter through a subsidiary called World Liberty Trust Company, and Democrats argue its foreign investors and ties to counterparties previously linked to illicit activity — including…
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What did OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould say about political pressure?
Gould told the House Financial Services Committee that the only political pressure he has felt on the World Liberty charter comes from Democrats, not President Trump. He pushed back at Rep. Gregory Meeks's "Trump fixer" question and said attempts to pressure him are "unprecedented."
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What new stablecoin rules did regulators signal at the hearing?
FDIC Chairman Travis Hill said another stablecoin rule is coming "in the very near future" — a customer-identification-program requirement for stablecoin issuers. The OCC, FDIC, and NCUA have already issued several proposed rules to implement the GENIUS Act.
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What is the GENIUS Act and what did Brad Sherman warn about it?
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act is the new US law governing stablecoins. Rep. Brad Sherman warned that the law's ban on paying interest to stablecoin holders is already being engineered around by "the best-paid lawyers in the country," and argued regulators must write…
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What did the Fed say about the Kraken master account?
Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said the approval grants only "very limited access to the payments system" for an initial 12 months. The Fed will use that window to study the account and inform formal rules for so-called "skinny" master accounts, which the rest of the institutional crypto…
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