US Senator Elizabeth Warren has formally pressured the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to delay reviewing World Liberty Financial's (WLFI) application for a national trust bank charter. The demand, made in a letter to OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, is contingent on President Donald Trump divesting his financial interest in the crypto platform.
Warren's central argument hinges on an unprecedented conflict of interest. President Trump and his sons Barron, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr. are listed as co-founders of World Liberty, a platform that has generated billions in paper wealth for the family. Warren's letter states that approving the charter while Trump maintains these ties would place the OCC, whose head serves at the president's pleasure, in the position of overseeing and regulating a company directly linked to the sitting president's finances. "In effect, for the first time in history, the President of the United States would be in charge of overseeing his own financial company," Warren wrote.
The senator expressed "no confidence" that Comptroller Gould would fairly assess the application, citing his past dismissal of questions about ensuring Trump would not influence the OCC. The proposed charter, filed by WLFI subsidiary WLTC Holdings, would allow the entity to issue, custody, and convert its USD1 stablecoin.
This regulatory clash is deeply intertwined with ongoing crypto legislation. Warren connected her request to the debate over crypto market structure bills in Congress, criticizing the recently passed GENIUS Act for failing to address conflicts of interest of this magnitude. The GENIUS Act established the OCC as the primary regulator for stablecoin issuers. Warren's letter calls for a pause in the OCC's review until Trump "eliminates all financial conflicts of interest involving himself or his family and the company," requesting a written commitment from Gould by January 20.
The issue emerges as the Senate Banking Committee, where Warren is the most senior Democrat, prepares to debate a crypto market structure bill. A draft released on Monday showed no inclusion of the ethics provisions requested by Democrats, though further negotiations are expected. The Senate Agriculture Committee delayed its own debate on the bill to later in January to seek more bipartisan support, partly due to pushes for conflict-of-interest guardrails.
