Senate Democrat Presses Cantor Fitzgerald on Tether Ties and Lutnick Family Profits

Sen. Richard Blumenthal is asking Wall Avenue agency Cantor Fitzgerald at hand over data on its enterprise relationship with Tether, the issuer of USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin—the dollar-pegged digital asset that underpins the crypto economic system.

He additionally needs to know the way a lot cash the household of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has produced from the association, in response to a letter dated Thursday.

“Disturbingly, Cantor Fitzgerald’s profitable enterprise preparations with Tether come on the expense of America’s nationwide safety,” Sen. Blumenthal argued.

The letter went to Brandon Lutnick, Cantor’s chairman and Howard Lutnick’s son, from Blumenthal as the highest Democrat on the Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations. It’s a request for data with an Oct. 23 deadline relatively than a subpoena, and it describes the minority’s probe as an investigation into “the illicit use of cryptocurrencies and the Trump Administration’s self-enrichment and self-dealings with cryptocurrency companies.”

The letter doesn’t accuse Cantor of breaking a selected legislation, and nothing in it’s a discovering of wrongdoing. It asks how the agency checks that Tether follows U.S. sanctions and anti-money-laundering guidelines, and the claims about Tether and the Lutnick household are Blumenthal’s, constructed on press studies and his workers’s earlier work.

“Simply as Tether has made untold tens of millions in curiosity and investments from the stablecoins utilized in these illicit actions, so has Cantor Fitzgerald profited from its relationship with Tether,” Blumenthal wrote.

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“Given the longstanding and deeply intertwined relationship between Tether and Cantor Fitzgerald, and its substantial relationships inside the Trump Administration, I’m writing to request details about your online business partnership with Tether and to study your practices for detecting violations of American banking and sanctions legal guidelines,” the senator added.

Blumenthal wrote that Lutnick has made greater than $250 million since President Donald Trump returned to workplace, together with a $192 million distribution from Cantor. Over the identical stretch, he mentioned, Cantor’s 5% stake in Tether climbed from $600 million to an estimated $10 billion, on high of the tens of tens of millions of {dollars} a 12 months the agency collects from the property it holds for Tether.

Cantor acts as Tether’s custodian, the agency that safeguards its reserves (the money and different holdings meant to again each USDT in circulation). Blumenthal famous that though Tether claims to function out of El Salvador, “the overwhelming majority of its property reside in the USA below your custodianship.”

Howard Lutnick ran Cantor till the Senate confirmed him as Commerce Secretary in February 2025, and the agency is now chaired by his son Brandon. The senator additionally requests the phrases of any mortgage or authorized technique that will enable Lutnick to switch asset possession to his youngsters.

That request tracks a reported mortgage from Tether to a belief for Lutnick’s 4 youngsters, for an undisclosed quantity, made across the time they purchased out their father’s stake in Cantor. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden asked Lutnick and Tether about it in April.

When property are transferred to a belief, the individuals below investigation don’t have the authorized property over these property.

The letter landed 10 days after the subcommittee’s Democratic workers launched “Tethered to Terrorism,” a report finding that 84% of 846 crypto wallets (addresses that maintain tokens) sanctioned or focused for seizure over hyperlinks to Iran and its proxies used USDT solely or practically solely.

The headline quantity rests erratically on two lists: 87% of the 757 wallets designated by Israel’s counter-terror finance bureau transacted principally in USDT, in opposition to 57% of the 101 designated by OFAC, the Treasury workplace that enforces U.S. sanctions.

Tether, which might lock a pockets so the tokens inside can not transfer, revealed a press release the identical day citing roughly $550 million in Iran-linked freezes this 12 months, together with $344 million in April and greater than $130 million in July. It didn’t deal with the report immediately.

Blumenthal additionally needs Howard Lutnick’s personal data on Tether from his time at Cantor, together with “any dialogue of Tether with the White Home or state and federal regulators, lobbying on Tether’s behalf.”

Different requests cowl Cantor’s know-your-customer insurance policies (the checks a agency runs on who it does enterprise with), whether or not it has ever weighed ending the connection, and its communications with the President’s Council of Advisors on Digital Belongings.

Cantor has till Oct. 23 to reply, and the letter asks the agency to protect each doc, document and communication tied to its Tether relationship within the meantime.