Conversation

I don’t expect the World Liberty Financial scandal,
—which The New York Times exposed in a superb investigative piece Monday
—to follow a recognizable trajectory.
That’s because nothing since January has followed a recognizable trajectory.

In the world I know, the Times story would initiate a Justice Department investigation and an impeachment inquiry,
and Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff could be counted on to resign by week’s end.

In the mystifying world we inhabit today, none of these things appears likely to happen.

In May, Zach Witkoff, the 32-year-old son of the billionaire Steve Witkoff, announced at a Dubai conference
—while sitting beside Eric Trump
—that he’d collected $2 billion from one Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan,
who controls the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates.

That $2 billion purchased a stablecoin called USD1 from World Liberty Financial,
a crypto firm of which Witkoff père et fils are co-founders,

and in which the Trump family owns a 60 percent stake.

It was, according to Binance (another participant in the deal),
“the single largest investment into a crypto company” that the world had ever seen.

Around the same time that Zach announced the UAE investment, his father, Steve Witkoff, said he was divesting his own stake in World Liberty Financial.

Four months later, though, the White House says Witkoff is
“still in the process of divesting.”
(High-ranking Trump officials are notorious slowpokes in this regard.)

What was worth $2 billion to UAE?

By what we’re supposed to believe is sheerest coincidence,
two weeks after Zach Witkoff announced Sheik Tahnoon’s stablecoin purchase,
President Donald Trump agreed to allow the UAE to import a large quantity of U.S.-produced AI computer chips,
-- with many of those chips going to a company named G42 that just happens to be controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon.

Previously, the Biden administration had sharply limited how many such chips could go to UAE
because the country conducted joint military exercises with China,
with which G42 had multiple business partnerships.

The UAE didn’t like being told no, so after Trump entered office it negotiated a better deal—with, among others, Steve Witkoff.

Another player in this drama is David Sacks,
who pushed hard to give UAE expanded access to the AI chips.

Sacks is Trump’s AI and crypto czar.

He also continues to work for the investment firm he founded, Craft Ventures. -- In the minds of some White House officials, this presents a potential conflict of interest.
(It’s a nice surprise to learn there remain a few ethics-minded people in the Trump administration.)

For example, according to a March press release from World Financial Liberty,
USD1 reserves are “custodied by BitGo,” -- which has significant backing from Craft Ventures.

The White House counsel finessed all this by giving Sacks a sort of golden ticket that allows Sacks to participate in government decisions that might affect his investments.
https://newrepublic.com/article/200551/trump-witkoff-emiratis-bribery-corruption?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SF_TNR&utm_source=Bluesky