American Princelings

Congress has finally produced a definitive answer to the question of what happens when the referee owns the team. The CLARITY Act — the 616-page crypto market structure bill now stalled in the Senate — devotes its final pages (603 through 616, for those reading along at home) to an “ethics” section that reads less like a restriction and more like a user manual for keeping a conflict of interest alive. The president may keep his digital assets. His adult children — the ones actually running World Liberty Financial — are exempt entirely. The only enforcer is the Justice Department, run by his “former” personal criminal defense attorney. Penalties cap at $500,000 (a rounding error against the $1.4 billion in crypto income Trump disclosed on June 30), the rules don’t take effect for 360 days, and the whole section evaporates on January 20, 2029 — at which point, per the bill’s own text, “no person may be subjected to any penalty, forfeiture or liability,” even for violations committed while it was in force. Retroactive absolution, drafted before the sins are committed. Martin Luther once had something to say about a Catholic Church that did this kind of thing.

The rest of the world does not need a cloture vote to see what is happening. Al Jazeera headlined the $1.4 billion. Ukraine’s Mezha tallied the family’s crypto billions for its readers. And in Albania, the Flamingo Revolution — approaching its ninth week — has turned Jared Kushner’s Sazan Island resort into a global symbol of what a captured state looks like. Keep in mind that this is as much a story about America as it is about Albania. Yes, Albania is a captured state, but so is America. Only the Albanians are further along in taking their country back. While Albanians are toppling busts of their prime minister over a single Trump-family deal, Trump’s appointee to the Treasury Department was giving his family business a bank charter while Congress was busy trying to pass indulgences for the whole thing. And lest you think this is only about Republicans, keep in mind the critical support from a few captured Democrats who are lobbying to make this Trump family indulgence the law of the land. Ruben Gallego (AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Angela Alsobrooks (MD), Mark Warner (VA), Cory Booker (NJ), John Fetterman (PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), Ben Ray Luján (NM), Elissa Slotkin (MI), Maggie Hassan (NH), Martin Heinrich (NM), Jon Ossoff (GA), Alex Padilla (CA), Jacky Rosen (NV), Adam Schiff (CA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), John Hickenlooper (CO), Andy Kim (NJ), Raphael Warnock (GA) – the ”crypto sixteen – we’re looking at you. Trump could not steal from you without their critical assistance.

Fold in Elon Musk’s $200 billion Thursday, and the week’s through-line writes itself — the Broligarchy is wobbling, and the princelings are racing to pour their winnings into federally chartered concrete before anyone can stop them.

Under the New CLARITY Act, the Ethics Section Is the Conflict

WLFireside, July 23, 2026

The most useful close reading of the bill yet published walks through the escape hatches one by one. Divestment only triggers if an entity clears a 20% ownership AND 50% token-revenue threshold — a bar you can limbo under by splitting ownership or diversifying revenue. A name-and-likeness carve-out lets “divested” ventures keep minting and selling Trump-branded assets. The president can still attend crypto-issuer-funded events, still make policy for the industry he profits from, and can only be policed by an attorney general he appointed — state attorneys general and private plaintiffs are expressly barred from suing. The author’s verdict is the week’s sharpest line — “Congress did not overlook Donald Trump’s conflict while writing the CLARITY Act. It reached page 603 and began documenting how the conflict could survive federal ethics law.” Pair that architecture with Section 604’s safe harbor for “non-custodial developers” — which four national law-enforcement associations warned in June could shield actors moving illicit crypto from “enforcement scrutiny” and open “gaps in the anti-money laundering framework” — and you get our editorial conclusion, grounded in their documented one. A legal regime in which the First Family’s global crypto pipeline is exempt from ethics rules, immune from private suits, policed only by itself, and shielded by developer safe harbors is not a regulatory framework. It is money-laundering infrastructure with a congressional seal (our money-laundering Spidey Senses have not stopped ringing since page 603). And do not forget, this bill has no chance without the enthusiastic backing of the aforementioned. You’ll be shocked to learn that many receive funding from the crypto industry.

Senate’s New CLARITY Act Leaves Trump’s Core Crypto Conflicts Unchecked

Transparency International U.S., July 22, 2026

The world’s premier anti-corruption organization reached the same place through drier prose. The revised bill’s restrictions cover only officials and spouses who issue or sponsor digital assets—not how Trump made most of his crypto fortune—and preexisting ventures may continue to use his name to mint new assets after any divestment. Deputy executive director Scott Greytak notes the bill “leaves significant business, revenue, and family arrangements outside any clear requirement to divest.” When Transparency International — an outfit that spends most of its time on countries we used to lecture — starts flagging the United States Senate’s handiwork, Americans need to pay attention. We have raised this before, and we will keep raising it.

Crypto Clarity Act Still at Mercy of Ethics Section as Democrats Balk at Trump Deal

CoinDesk, July 21, 2026

The White House says Trump has agreed to “the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history” — while declining to share the complete language with the Democrats being asked to vote for it (a negotiating posture that tells you everything). The sticking point is enforcement. Democrats want state attorneys general empowered precisely because the alternative is an attorney general’s office that answers to the largest crypto holder in the federal government. August 7 is the pre-recess deadline. The House, with its own Republican fractures, waits until September. Every senator who votes for a self-policed, family-exempt, sunset-and-amnesty ethics regime is choosing to be a willing enabler. Remember their names.

World Liberty Nears OCC Trust Bank Approval Despite Conflict Concerns

crypto.news, July 2026

While the Senate argues about the fig leaf, the family firm is getting a federal charter. Comptroller Jonathan Gould is expected to rule “in the coming days” on World Liberty Financial’s application to become a national trust bank. Former OCC officials told NOTUS that rejection is “inconceivable.” The charter would let WLF issue and redeem its USD1 stablecoin, manage reserves, and custody digital assets under federal supervision — federal supervision of a company whose token-sale proceeds flow 75%to DT Marks DEFI LLC, an entity controlled by the sitting president. Reuters reports that more than $2.3 billion has flowed to the family from four crypto ventures since the second term began. Senator Elizabeth Warren called approval “enabling presidential corruption.” Representative Gregory Meeks asked whether the comptroller was acting as a “Trump fixer.” You may remember the $500 million a UAE-tied fund put into WLF before the inauguration — the deal that derailed crypto legislation last year (as it should have). Now imagine those rails with a federal bank charter bolted on, and the CLARITY Act’s exemptions wrapped around them. In future ̶r̶e̶g̶u̶l̶a̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ filings, this will be called “clarity.”

Thousands Swarm the Streets of Tirana in Major ‘Pink Flamingo’ Anti-Government Protests

Euronews, July 5, 2026

Flamingo Revolution update, for those keeping vigil with us. July 5 marked day 35 of continuous protest and the largest crowd yet — tens of thousands in Tirana against the $4.6 billion Kushner-and-Ivanka-linked resort scheme on protected Sazan Island and the Narta Lagoon, waving inflatable flamingos and banners reading “Albania is not for sale.” Protesters toppled a bust of Prime Minister Edi Rama in a deliberate echo of 1991, when Albanians pulled down a bust of Enver Hoxha. Rama answered with tear gas, water cannons, dozens of arrests, and the insistence that “there is no chance for this investment to stop.” By the July 4th weekend, organizers were calling it the largest uprising since communism fell, and investigative journalist Lindita Cela had traced the project’s ownership into shell companies running from Albania to the Netherlands — structures from which, she reports, it is “impossible to find out” who ultimately owns what. Foreign Policy now frames the movement as a front line against “billionaires and autocrats” generally. Don’t forget that includes the Trump and Kushner families. Locals call it “Trump Island.” Ivanka calls it her “own private island in the Adriatic Sea.” The flamingos were not consulted.

Tesla’s Worst Day in a Year Cuts Elon Musk’s Net Worth by $18 Billion

Forbes, July 23, 2026

Elon’s horrible, no-good, very bad day. Tesla fell almost 15% Thursday — roughly $200 billion in market value, the worst single-day drop since March 2025 — after Wednesday’s earnings revealed missed estimates, thin vehicle profits, and $5.8 billion of spending on self-driving cars and humanoid robots, of which Tesla has sold precisely zero. Musk’s response to investors was to promise to spend faster (“This is a massive capex year”). Per Oligarch Watch (July 24), the week also brought an NHTSA investigation into Musk’s post urging Tesla owners to “Make your espresso on the road while your Tesla drives itself,” and — the part relevant to this newsletter — Wall Street Journal reporting that SpaceX is negotiating to lease the Pentagon billions of dollars in data-center compute, which would neatly explain why the Justice Department just intervened against an NAACP lawsuit targeting the polluting turbines those data centers run on. A Boligarch © may lose $18 billion on Thursday and still spend Friday at the federal feed trough. The system works — for him.

Trump Goons Secretly Trash His Sons’ Latest Grift

Daily Beast, July 2026 (on New York Times reporting)

Even the help is embarrassed. Administration officials involved in the U.S.–Kazakhstan tungsten deal — negotiated by Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, finalized November 6, 2025, with $1.6 billion in potential federal financing signaled — anonymously told the New York Times they were disappointed to discover that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s Dominari Securities had taken a 20% stake in Kaz Resources, the project their father’s government is financing. Cantor Fitzgerald, overseen by Lutnick’s sons, helped raise $210 million for lead investors because, in this administration, every deal is a Princeling affair. Kaz Resources executive Pini Althaus offered the year’s finest understatement — “I see how the optics might be disturbing to some people.” The optics. Yes. The optics.

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