Senate Republicans Release New CLARITY Act Draft With Ethics Provision

Senate Republicans have released the latest draft of the CLARITY Act, which includes an ethics provision banning covered elected officials from engaging in crypto. This follows the ethics agreement that President Donald Trump agreed to, although Democrats have yet to signal their support for the bill despite this latest development.

Republicans Release Latest CLARITY Act Text

The latest draft of the crypto bill contains a section prohibiting covered elected officials from issuing or sponsoring a crypto asset. These covered officials include the president, the vice president, members of Congress, federal judges, and their spouses.

This CLARITY Act section also requires these covered officials to divest their crypto holdings or place them in a blind trust, or both. Meanwhile, this provision will sunset on January 20, 2029, notably around when President Trump will no longer be in office.

Democrats had pushed for an ethics provision in a bid to rein in the president’s crypto ventures, with disclosures showing that he earned up to $1.4 billion from crypto last year. The dispute over the inclusion of an ethics provision had been the primary obstacle to the crypto bill’s progress. As CoinGape reported, President Trump agreed to the ethics provision earlier this week.

Meanwhile, another new section in the updated CLARITY Act draft contains provisions to strengthen law enforcement’s power to deal with crypto-related crimes. Law enforcement groups had raised concerns that the BRCA provision in the crypto bill would make it harder to crack down on illicit finance in the crypto industry, which likely prompted this new provision.

Democrats Yet To Support Crypto Bill

Democrats have signaled that they are unlikely to support the CLARITY Act in its current form despite the inclusion of an ethics provision. According to Semafor, Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks described the proposal to allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce the ethics provisions as “wild and unserious and stone-cold crazy.”

She added that the crypto bill must empower state Attorneys General to enforce the provision. As such, Senator Alsobrooks said that she will still be voting no on the crypto bill if it were to hit the Senate floor as it is.

With a bipartisan deal yet to be reached, crypto traders are still betting against President Trump signing the CLARITY Act into law this year.

Data from the top crypto prediction market platform Polymarket shows a 39% chance that the bill would become law this year. The odds are notably down from a recent high above 50% earlier this week after President Trump agreed to the ethics provision.