The Los Angeles Times gave that headline to an Aug. 23 article reporting that the Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), a division of the Treasury, had given approval for the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial Corp. to become a so-called “trust bank"; that is, a bank which neither takes nor lends any deposits, but manages speculative securities for clients. In this case it is a “digital bank,” and the assets managed are cryptocurrency assets, the beneficiaries being the President and his family along with the family of his real estate friend and sometime special envoy, Steven Witkoff.
A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, was quoted by the newspaper: “There are no conflicts of interest.” This is perverse true, since this “bank” serves no other conflicting interests than the enrichment of the President, his family and close friends.
Ironically, the venerable OCC, established in 1863 by the National Currency Act of that year (later renamed the Banking Act of 1864) under Lincoln’s administration, was the first U.S. Federal bank regulator, and was created within the Treasury to regulate the capital holdings in Treasury Bonds of nationally-chartered banks, which were prohibited from handling private securities by that same Act.
Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and nine other Democratic Senators immediately responded with legislation which would bar the President, Vice President, and members of their immediate families, from owning banks. This will go nowhere now, but be held over by these Senators in hopes of being able to impeach the President on corruption charges if they gain either House in November.