Khanna launches investigation into Trump family dealings with 'spy sheikh'

Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China, has launched an investigation into a deal between a Trump family cryptocurrency company and an investment firm linked to an Emirati royal known as the "spy sheikh."

In a letter Wednesday, Khanna pressed Zach Witkoff, CEO of World Liberty Financial, for details about a $500 million investment by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan last January, shortly before President Trump took office.

The deal, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, secured Sheikh Tahnoon a 49 percent stake in the crypto venture, which was launched by President Trump, Steve Witkoff and their sons in late 2024. Witkoff now serves as U.S. special envoy to the Middle East.

Several months after Sheikh Tahnoon's investment, the Trump administration agreed to allow the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to import 500,000 advanced AI chips, with a large portion headed to an AI firm with ties to the sheikh.

"Export controls are complicated, and reasonable minds can disagree on the best way to implement and administer them," Khanna wrote in Wednesday's letter.

"But whatever one's views on how we should engage with the UAE on AI in order to win the strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party, seemingly subordinating robust policy discussions to the President's personal financial interests is unacceptable," he continued.

This is not the first deal linking World Liberty Financial with Sheikh Tahnoon. In May, the crypto firm announced that another investment firm tied to the Emirati royal, MGX, was using World Liberty's newly launched stablecoin to invest $2 billion in the crypto exchange Binance.

The MGX investment came under scrutiny last fall when Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

"In their totality, these transactions, investments, and pardons do not just bear the appearance of impropriety, but of illegality," Khanna added, noting that Witkoff is barred from participating in matters in which he has a financial interest while Trump is barred from accepting gifts from foreign dignitaries under the Constitution.

World Liberty Financial has pushed back on the allegations, accusing lawmakers of "harassing a private American business to score political points."

"The Wall Street Journal has acknowledged the President had no involvement in the deal," company spokesperson David Wachsman said in a statement. "This is a baseless assault."

The newest revelations about the $500 million investment have sparked pushback from several Democratic lawmakers. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) clashed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a hearing Wednesday over World Liberty Financial.

"This is no longer just about a shady crypto deal or a possible gift," Meeks said. "When a foreign-linked investor is putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a company controlled by the president's family and at the same time this president is conducting foreign policy with that country, you know what that creates? A national security concern."

When Meeks asked Bessent if he would pause and investigate the company's application for a bank charter at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Treasury secretary responded that the agency is "an independent entity" and accused the congressman of traveling to Venezuela in 2006 "to lobby [former Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also slammed the deal Sunday as "corruption, plain and simple" and called on the administration to reverse its decision to approve advanced AI chip exports to the UAE.

"Steve Witkoff, David Sacks, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and other Trump Administration officials must testify in front of Congress on mounting evidence that they sold out American national security in order to benefit the President's crypto company -- and about whether any officials lined their own pockets in the process," she added in a statement.

However, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) argued Thursday that the crypto firm has "nothing to do with" what Trump does as president.

"Is it OK for the children of the president of the United States to be involved in business?" he said at an event hosted by Puck News. "That has nothing to do with what the president of the United States does."

"This is a guy who doesn't take a salary. This is a guy who doesn't need to do this job," Moreno continued, suggesting he was skeptical of "the idea that he became president of the United States so his sons someday -- so he went through the election, almost got assassinated because he gave it all up -- so somebody's [Trump's] sons can get an investment."