US senator probes Tether after reported deal with ex-Trump crypto adviser

The Democratic ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations asked Paolo Ardoino for records related to a reported deal between Tether and Nxum. Update (Oct. 23, 6:27 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a response from Tether. Senator Richard Blumenthal has requested information from Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino after a Wall Street Journal report said that the stablecoin issuer had inked a $6.3 million deal with a marketing company co-founded by former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines. In a Thursday letter to Ardoino, the Connecticut lawmaker >said that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations demanded “records and information related to contracts, payments, communications, and lobbying” between Tether and Nxum, Hines’ company. The probe into Nxum, Tether and Hines, according to Blumental, was part of what the senator called the Trump administration’s “self-enrichment and self-dealings with cryptocurrency firms.” “While Hines failed to divest his one-third stake in Nxum [...] he worked closely over encrypted messaging applications with Nxum to coordinate lobbying, advocacy, and browbeating of members of Congress that were opposed to, or had sought changes to, pending stablecoin legislation,” said Blumenthal. “Those messages also reportedly demonstrate that Tether was directly coordinating Nxum’s lobbying efforts on the GENIUS Act which would regulate stablecoins, with CEO Paolo Ardoino demanding that Nxum ‘obliterate’ the legislation’s opponents.” Hines worked as executive director as President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets from January to August 2025, when he left the White House to join Tether as a “strategic adviser.” He later became CEO of Tether US. Harry Jung, another crypto adviser in the Trump administration, left his position in July 2026 and joined Nxum as a managing director in August. A Tether spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the company was aware of the allegations and an external counsel ”found no evidence of wrongdoing” after a previous ”in-depth internal investigation into the matter.” Related: Trump didn‘t mention ‘crypto’ once in White House cybercrime roundtable Trump, his family and members of his administration continue to face scrutiny over accusations that they are reaping financial windfalls from crypto policies on laws over which they have control or influence. The president

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