| A 70-page federal complaint says Abu Dhabi also ran $2 billion through the family's stablecoin. |
| LEAD ESSAY / 4 MIN / 4 DOCUMENTS / STORY FILE UAE-ARYAM |
|
| What would you do if a foreign government's top security official offered your family $500 million? |
| I know what the Constitution says you'd have to do. There's a line in it called the Foreign Emoluments Clause. In plain English, a federal officeholder can't take payments from a foreign state unless Congress agrees first, and in public. |
| Congress never held that vote. So on October 22, a Circle shareholder named J. Benjamin Greenberg went to federal court in Washington. He wants a judge to rule on the money instead. |
| Let me walk you through the two deals at the center of his case, because the dates matter as much as the dollars... |
|
$500 million, four days before the oath |
|
| On January 16, 2025, a company called Aryam Investment 1 agreed to pay $500 million for 49% of World Liberty Financial. That's the Trump family's crypto venture. The complaint ties Aryam to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who serves as national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates. |
| Four days later, Donald Trump took the oath of office. His latest financial disclosure is the yearly report on his money that every president files. It shows the deal sent $263 million to Trump family entities, according to The Wall Street Journal. |
|
| No president in American history has profited from his office so brazenly. |
| J. BENJAMIN GREENBERG, IN HIS COMPLAINT, VIA BENZINGA |
|
|
| World Liberty rejects all of it. Its lawyer, Bill Burck, said the filing reads "more like a partisan press release than a lawsuit." And White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told CNBC the case is frivolous. Neither side has a ruling to point to yet. |
|
|
| Greenberg's second target is bigger, and it takes a minute to follow, so stay with me. |
| MGX is an Abu Dhabi investment fund that Tahnoon chairs. Back in 2025 it put $2 billion into Binance, the giant crypto exchange, and it paid in USD1. USD1 is the family's stablecoin. In plain English, a stablecoin is a digital dollar meant to be backed one-for-one by cash and Treasurys. |
| So $2 billion of demand for the family's coin arrived in a single deal. And the cash behind USD1 earns interest. The Journal's reporting puts that at about $150 million a year on roughly $4 billion in circulation. Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao later in 2025. Lawyers for Zhao and Binance say the pardon had no connection to the deal. |
| FILED / VERIFIED COMPLAINT, GREENBERG V. TRUMP |
|
| Greenberg filed it on October 22 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It names the president, World Liberty, envoy Steve Witkoff and four related companies. He asks the court to declare the payments unconstitutional, order an accounting, and send the profits to the U.S. Treasury. |
|
| His argument is that foreign money doesn't have to reach Trump's own bank account to count. If it goes to companies his family owns, the complaint says, the clause still applies. |
|
Sheikh Tahnoon's second 49% |
|
| Here's the part I can't get past. In August, the Journal reported that Tahnoon and his co-investors back StringZ Holding. StringZ owns 49% of the holding company for World Liberty's planned bank. That bank already holds a conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which in plain English means a yes with conditions attached. |
| You can check the paper yourself. The case is Greenberg v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-03686, and the public docket shows the complaint and ten summonses entered on October 22, with no ruling since. |
| So where's your stake in this? Start with the remedy. Greenberg wants any unlawful profits paid to the U.S. Treasury, and that Treasury belongs to you. |
| Then think about who was supposed to decide. The clause hands that call to Congress, the body you elect. Your representatives never got a vote on a $500 million stake or a $2 billion coin deal. Tomorrow you choose the people who would get that chance next. |
