Sen. Richard Blumenthal is demanding information from Tether over reported multimillion-dollar funds to a consulting agency co-founded by Bo Hines, the White Home’s former prime crypto adviser.
Blumenthal, the rating Democrat on the Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations, mentioned Thursday he had despatched letters to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and to Nxum, the consulting agency Hines began together with his father, in a press launch from his workplace. The letters request information and data associated to contracts, funds, communications and lobbying between Tether and Nxum. A 3rd letter reportedly went to Hines himself.
The inquiry targets funds Blumenthal’s letter describes as exceeding $6 million, reportedly beneath a strategic communications association that started weeks after Hines took workplace. Hines led the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Property from January to August 2025, then joined Tether as a strategic adviser and later turned chief government of Tether US. Throughout his White Home tenure he helped steer the GENIUS Act, the primary federal framework for stablecoins, by way of Congress, and Tether launched its US-based stablecoin USAT beneath the brand new regulation.
“Tether’s alleged multimillion-dollar fee to a agency managed by the White Home official primarily answerable for cryptocurrency coverage implicates federal ethics, anticorruption, and lobbying legal guidelines,” Blumenthal mentioned within the letter.
Tether pushed again. An organization spokesperson mentioned Tether is conscious of the allegations that type the idea of the senator’s letter, and that “exterior counsel beforehand carried out an in-depth inner investigation into the matter, which discovered no proof of wrongdoing.” The corporate, which points the world’s largest stablecoin, mentioned it was nonetheless reviewing the letter.
It’s the senator’s second transfer towards Tether in a month. Final month his workplace launched findings that Tether had turn out to be central in Iran’s shadow banking system and the financing actions of terrorist teams, which Tether disputed on the time, saying it helps authorities discover unhealthy actors. The brand new letter is an inquiry and doesn’t set up that Tether, Hines or Nxum acted unlawfully.
