White House adviser defends Trump's crypto ties after CLARITY Act defeat

White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, pushed back against accusations that President Trump's own crypto ties contributed to the CLARITY Act's Senate defeat. Speaking at Washington events this week, Witt said Democrats made the president's holdings "a political issue" and called the ethics fight — not the bill's market-structure provisions — the reason it died, arguing Trump agreed to "unprecedented" ethics restrictions in an effort to get the bill passed.

• Witt said Trump accepted two unusual ethics provisions, including divestiture or a blind trust, plus letting state attorneys general enforce the rules.
• He accused banking lobbyists of tanking the bill over stablecoin-reward concerns, calling their objections insincere after defeating it.
• He suggested the focus now shifts to federal regulators rather than the year-end lame-duck session.