Blumenthal sets Jan. 4 records deadline for Binance, Tether and Trump-linked crypto firms

Senator Richard Blumenthal gave Binance, Tether and two Trump-linked crypto firms until Jan. 4, 2027, to hand over records sought in Senate inquiries, warning that the subcommittee would look for other ways to obtain them if the companies stay quiet.

Blumenthal, the incoming chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters on Nov. 5 to Binance, Tether, World Liberty Financial and Fight Fight Fight LLC, the company that launched the TRUMP memecoin, his office announced. Each letter asks the recipient to confirm receipt with subcommittee staff by Nov. 9 and to begin producing records by Nov. 30, with further records to follow on a schedule agreed in advance.

"Please also note that failure to voluntarily produce the requested records and information by January 4, 2027, will leave the Subcommittee with no choice but to consider alternative measures to obtain compliance," the letters state. The January date falls one day after Democrats are due to take control of the Senate. The panel's current rules allow its chair to issue subpoenas for documents and records, Cointelegraph reported, and Cointribune noted that the letters do not spell out which measures would follow.

The letter to Binance chief executive Richard Teng is the bluntest of the four. It says the subcommittee's minority has spent 18 months inquiring into the illicit use of cryptocurrencies, including Binance's anti-money laundering policies, and that despite repeated requests the exchange has "failed to adequately respond" and has "not produced any responsive records." The letter renews requests Blumenthal first sent on Feb. 24 and April 1, 2026, and copies Ron Johnson, the subcommittee's Republican chairman.

Binance called the underlying reports false in a March reply and said that, to its knowledge, no Binance account had transacted directly with an Iran-based entity, according to Cointelegraph. In the Nov. 5 letter, Blumenthal wrote that the exchange still had not turned over any of the requested records.

The enclosed April 1 letter sets out the dispute in numbers. Binance told the subcommittee that only $110,000 was directly exchanged with four major Iranian crypto exchanges in a year, while the reporting behind the inquiry describes hundreds of millions of dollars moving to Iran-linked entities. Blumenthal asked the company to produce the documentation and records it relied on to base its March response, alongside everything requested in February. The same letter accuses the exchange of taking two months to respond to law enforcement requests about one partner, Hexa Whale, and at least five months to remove another, Blessed Trust, as a vendor after warnings about its role in terrorist financing.

The Tether letter renews requests for records on the use of USDT by sanctioned entities and on the company's dealings with Nxum, a consulting firm co-founded by former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines. The letter carries the same Nov. 30 and Jan. 4 dates as the others. In September, Blumenthal released a report by the subcommittee's Democratic staff alleging that USDT has become a key part of Iran's shadow banking network. Tether disputed the claim and said it helped authorities freeze nearly $550 million in Iran-linked tokens in 2026.

World Liberty Financial and Fight Fight Fight LLC have been under inquiry since May 2025, when Blumenthal opened a review of potential conflicts of interest in Trump's crypto ventures. In July 2026 he hosted a public forum that published testimony from $TRUMP coin investors who said they lost thousands of dollars. Lawyers for World Liberty Financial have disputed Blumenthal's claims and said the company has no affiliation with Fight Fight Fight LLC. In June 2026, Blumenthal and four other Senate Democrats called for hearings into a reported $500 million deal for an Abu Dhabi investment firm to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial.

The Jan. 4 deadline sits at the end of a wider same-day notice. Blumenthal's office said the batch also went to the Homeland Security secretary, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission and publicly known donors to the Trump ballroom project, each over separate inquiries. On the crypto track, Democrats won the Senate majority in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and the incoming majority takes its seats in January 2027.

Cointelegraph said it sought comment from Binance, Tether, World Liberty Financial and Fight Fight Fight LLC but did not receive responses before publication. Cointribune reported that no jurisdiction has concluded that Binance or Tether violated sanctions and that no subpoena appears in the file, and that the letters request evidence without issuing a verdict.