Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden are pressing stablecoin issuer Tether and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over a reported loan made to a family trust tied to Lutnick’s children.

In a letter sent this week to Lutnick and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, the senators said they wanted to ensure that Tether has not tried to bribe Lutnick, given the loan made by Tether to a trust where Lutnick's four children are beneficiaries.

Lutnick became Commerce Secretary in February 2025 after leading Cantor Fitzgerald, which is now run by his sons. Since 2021, Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, have maintained close ties, when the firm began serving as a custodian for Tether’s reserves. 

Bloomberg reported last month that around the same time Lutnick transferred his ownership stake in Cantor Fitzgerald to trusts for his children, one of those trusts borrowed an undisclosed amount from Tether.

Selling those assets is part of federal rules to ensure that presidential appointees don't have a conflict of interest, but ethics experts Bloomberg spoke with said that adding his children to the trusts undermines that effort. 

That's a problem, said Warren and Wyden. 

"This document raises questions about whether Tether may have helped provide Secretary Lutnick’s children with the capital needed to purchase their father’s stake in Cantor Fitzgerald, and in return secured an interest in his children’s assets," they said in the letter. "If true, that would be a startling revelation."

Warren and Wyden also brought up concerns about the GENIUS stablecoin act passed into law last year, noting that Tether lobbied for the bill. 

This comes as the Senate Banking Committee, of which Warren is a top Democrat, has been mulling broader crypto market structure legislation for months, with particular concern over conflicts of interest. 

"The coziness of his relationship with Tether prior to his nomination, and the favorable treatment Tether received in the GENIUS Act, make reports of a loan from Tether to his children’s trust even more troubling," the senators said. "The GENIUS Act may now be the law, but as Congress considers digital asset market structure legislation, we must ensure that politically connected crypto interests do not receive special treatment and undermine our national security."

The pair also criticized Tether over its marred regulatory past. In 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission settled with the stablecoin issuer over charges that it made false statements about it being fully backed by dollars.

In 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice  had considered sanctioning Tether because of the stablecoin's use by terrorist groups

Tether has taken the stance that it is helping the government combat illicit activity, in part through helping seize USDT linked to scams and international crime. 

"Tether is seen as a ‘dream currency’ for money launderers… The Department of Justice was reportedly investigating Tether as recently as 2024 for potential violations of sanctions and anti-money laundering rules," Warren and Wyden said in the letter.

The Commerce Department and Tether did not immediately respond to a request for comment.