Democratic lawmakers from the US House of Representatives have accused President Donald Trump and his administration of using the White House to enrich the presidential family through their crypto businesses, calling on Congress to fight corruption.

House Democrats Call Out ‘New Age of Corruption’

In a recent report from the House Judiciary Committee, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin claimed that President Trump had allegedly “exploited” the presidency and transformed the White House into “a personal money-making operation” that has added billions of dollars to his net worth through his crypto ventures.

The 27-page document, named “Trump, Crypto, and a New Age of Corruption,” compiled multiple news media outlet reports affirming that the US President has seen his family’s crypto holdings surge to $11.6 billion since he stepped into office in January, making over $800 million from the sale of digital assets in the first half of 2025.

As reported by Bitcoinist, a Financial Times investigation released in October claimed that the Trump family’s crypto fortune has surged to over $1 billion from his multiple digital asset ventures since his return to the White House.

The investigation explained that Trump’s digital asset businesses have significantly boosted the US President’s net worth on paper by billions of dollars, but only calculated the potential income from the realized profits of World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token and USD1 stablecoin, and the official TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.

According to FT calculations, the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins made around $362 million and $65 million, respectively, for a total of $427 million in sales and trading fees. Moreover, the WLFI token had generated approximately $550 million by the time of the investigation, while the USD1 stablecoin, which recorded $2.71 billion in total sales, potentially $42 million.

“Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into the world’s most corrupt crypto startup operation, minting staggering personal fortunes for him and his family in less than a year.” Representative Raskin affirmed in a Press Release.

“We don’t know where all the money is coming from yet, but America has never seen corruption on this scale take place inside the White House. This Report shows how Trump’s so-called ‘pro-crypto agenda’ is just one more Trump family self-enrichment plan, built on pay-to-play deals and corrupt foreign interests seeking secret channels of access and influence,” he continued.

Trump’s Crypto Ventures Expose ‘Weaknesses’ Of US System

Raskin also stated that the Trump administration has “dismantled” federal oversight and safeguards that were set to protect Americans from fraud, scams, and financial exploitation. “Trump has been pardoning criminals who commit fraud through crypto and dismantling the regulations that protect legitimate American investors.”

The report presented a list of actions that advanced “Trump and his family’s personal financial interests at the expense of the law, ethics, and national security.” The evidence exposed in the document included claims that the President’s crypto ventures have “attracted substantial investments from foreign nationals and state-linked entities seeking to curry favor with the Administration.”

Last week, Democratic Senators expressed concerns about potential national security risks related to World Liberty Financial over token sales allegedly linked to illicit actors. In a letter, the lawmakers requested that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent investigate allegations that the Trump-backed company had sold tokens to sanctioned entities or individuals with ties to illicit actors in Russia and North Korea.

They also argued that World Liberty Financial and its token “lacks adequate safeguards to prevent bad actors from moving funds or gaining influence over its governance,” which raises concerns over a potential conflict of interest.

The Committee’s report highlighted that the Trump Administration has paused or ended most investigations and enforcement actions involving major crypto companies and disbanded multiple federal-level crypto enforcement units. In addition, it expressed concern about the controversial pardons issue to key industry players, like Binance’s co-founder, Changpeng Zhao.

Ultimately, the document warned that Trump’s crypto moves seemingly expose “severe weaknesses” in the US’s campaign finance, conflict-of-interest, and anti-bribery laws. “Congress must expose this dangerous grift, and defend the rule of law against the profiteers and criminals who would destroy it,” Raskin concluded.

Amazon’s cash tax bill has dropped sharply this year under a new U.S. tax law that lets companies immediately deduct the cost of equipment and research — a policy designed to encourage spending on technology development and other investments.

The decrease is detailed in the company’s third-quarter 10-Q filing, released Friday morning following its blockbuster earnings report. Amazon’s shares rose more than 10% in early trading after beating expectations and reassuring investors about long-term AI demand.

In the filing, Amazon cites the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025” as a key factor in the tax deduction. The situation illustrates how tax changes championed by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress are rewarding U.S. investment and reshaping corporate finances.

But it’s not as simple as a basic tax break: while the law accelerates short-term deductions for domestic investment, it also changes the tax treatment on foreign profits — boosting long-term tax liabilities overall.

According to its quarterly filing, Amazon paid $1.1 billion in cash for income taxes in the third quarter, a 45% decrease from the $2 billion it paid in the same period last year — even as quarterly profits rose 38% to $21.2 billion. For the first nine months of 2025, cash tax payments fell to $6.8 billion, down from $8.2 billion in 2024.

The new law changed two key rules that impact companies making big capital investments.

• First, it reinstated 100% “bonus depreciation,” allowing companies to deduct the full cost of new equipment — such as servers for AWS and AI or warehouse robotics — in the year it’s purchased rather than spreading the deduction over many years.
• Second, it restored the immediate expensing of domestic R&D costs, reversing a recent rule that required this spending to be amortized over several years.

Boosting capital spending and cutting jobs

For a company like Amazon, these changes create a significant and immediate reduction in taxable income. The tech giant spent $35.1 billion on property and equipment in the third quarter, up 55% from a year earlier, driven by massive investments in AI infrastructure.

Backers of the U.S. tax changes said they would spur investment and job creation in the United States, but Amazon’s situation shows that the reality is more complicated. The company is reaping the benefits of the new tax incentives while eliminating about 14,000 corporate jobs. 

Speaking on Amazon’s earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy attributed the layoffs not to cost-cutting but to efforts to simplify operations and reduce bureaucracy after years of growth. Amazon took a $1.8 billion pre-tax charge in the quarter for severance and other costs related to the layoffs.

Amazon isn’t alone in spending big on AI infrastructure or benefitting from the tax changes.

Although they didn’t go into as much detail as Amazon did, Microsoft and Google both referenced the 2025 U.S. tax law in their latest quarterly reports, noting the reinstatement of immediate R&D expensing and accelerated depreciation. Both companies are realizing similar near-term tax benefits as they expand their AI and cloud infrastructure investments.

Long-term tax provision still intact

For Amazon, the changes in U.S. tax law mark a new chapter in a long-running national debate. The company, which faced criticism in years past for paying little or no federal income tax despite strong profits, has long maintained that it pays what it owes under U.S. law.

However, the immediate reduction is only part of the picture.

While Amazon’s cash payments declined, the tax expense reported on its income statement — a figure based on accounting rules rather than cash paid — nearly doubled. The company’s income-tax provision for the first nine months of 2025 was $14.1 billion, up from $6.9 billion in the same period last year.

Amazon’s filing says this increase was also driven by the new tax act, which reduced other benefits, such as the deduction for profits made overseas. 

This $7.3 billion gap between its accounting provision ($14.1 billion) and its cash tax bill ($6.8 billion) shows how the new law shifts the timing of tax payments rather than eliminating them. In effect, the deductions reduce the company’s cash outlay for taxes in the short term but will ultimately be paid in future years as those assets are depreciated on the company’s books.

Shares of cannabis companies surged Monday after a social media post from President Donald Trump highlighted the benefits of CBD in senior healthcare.

Cannabis stocks and marijuana rescheduling hopes high after Donald Trump social media post is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING -- President Donald Trump said Monday that he is moving forward with plans to arrange a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in what is being seen as the next crucial step toward bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A meeting at the White House on Monday with President Zelensky and senior European leaders provided a strong show of solidarity, and a striking visual contrast to President Trump’s one-on-one meeting on Friday with President Putin in Alaska, which ended earlier than scheduled and without any public announcements of progress.

On Monday as the White House welcomed Zelensky, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Union President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the images signaled a much stronger show of unity among those calling for an end to the killing and a sign that the ball is landing squarely in Putin’s court.

"This looks to me like the beginning of negotiations,” Ambassador Kurt Volker who served as U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine negotiations from 2017-2019, and as Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009, told The Cipher Brief. “Putin set out his maximalist position. Now, Ukraine and the European leaders are setting out a much more modest and realistic one and calling for a trilateral meeting to discuss.”

Even though a scheduled press conference between Presidents Trump and Putin was cancelled after the two leaders met on Friday, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff characterized the meeting to CNN as a win, saying that the ball had moved forward on convincing Russia to agree to “Article 5-like protections”, describing the guarantees as “game changing.”

Article 5 under the NATO charter, provides for collective defense, meaning an attack against one NATO member can trigger a response by any NATO member - something that has been a non-starter for the Russian president since Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The idea of a U.S.-supported Article 5-type measure is something that the Trump administration has said will largely be shouldered by the Europeans – with U.S. support – and it signals a lot more pressure on the Russian President to concede on some of his most adamant demands to date.

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“Putin is under a lot of pressure,” former senior CIA Officer Glenn Corn told The Cipher Brief. “He's under stress. He understands that he doesn't have the cards.”

Even though the Russian President was not present during talks with Zelensky and European leaders, President Trump made a point to pause talks in order to call the Russian leader, according to European sources. A follow-up meeting between Putin and Zelensky would signal a strong win for President Trump. Not so much for President Putin.

“Putin is unlikely to accept such a meeting if his pre-conditions are not met,” Ambassador Volker told The Cipher Brief. “So, this is just positioning. The real issue will be what happens to Russian supply lines, increasingly targeted by Ukraine, and the Russian economy, which is faltering. I still expect Putin to go along with a ceasefire in place by the end of the year."

In addition to future security guarantees, another key issue on the table is that of land and just how much Ukrainian territory might be ceded to Russia as part of a deal to end the killing.

“Russia is chiefly looking to legitimize territorial gains obtained by force and Ukraine is looking for security guarantees if they are ever to agree to give up territory,” said former 6-time CIA station chief Ralph Goff in an exclusive Cipher Brief interview. “While the Ukrainians will hardly be ready to cede any territory without a Russian boot on it, Zelensky can likely give up territory but only if Russia accepts the Article 5-type" security guarantees.”

While an unpopular realization in Kyiv, some three and a half years into this war, Ukraine lacks the manpower to retake territory that’s been lost to Russia.

“Indeed, they are not able to prevent continuing incremental gains by the Russians albeit at huge cost to the Russians,” said Goff. “Thus, Zelensky can tell his countrymen "Look if you won't allow me to cede territory already lost to the Russians then I need to draft your teenagers to try and get it back."

Some experts, who have long advocated for more – not less – U.S. involvement in helping Ukraine are concerned about just how much land Kyiv will be forced to give up and how that may signal a win for Putin.

“The U.S. and our Allies have not actually even tried to help Ukraine win this war,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges (Ret.), who served as NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics. “We never declared it as an objective or created or implemented policies that would make it so – we’ve barely touched Russia’s ability to export oil and gas and we’ve not touched frozen Russian assets, nor moved all of the military resources needed to help them win.”

Still, there is hope that the solidarity seen at the White House on Monday will be enough to pressure Putin to a deal.

“We shouldn't forget that Monday’s meeting didn't happen without White House concurrence,” said Corn. “They were guests of the United States Government and of the President of the United States. So, Europe, the U.S. and NATO seem unified in a way that we haven't seen in a while.”

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