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Economy
Lina Khan Slams Trump FTC for Giving Oil Executives a Free Pass After Price-Fixing Scandal
Khan accused the administration of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
Jul 18, 2025
A ban imposed last year by top antitrust enforcer Lina Khan under the Biden administration had stopped two fossil fuel CEOs accused of colluding on oil prices from serving on powerful corporate boards, with the Federal Trade Commission saying at the time that the order would "help ensure American consumers benefit from lower prices at the pump."
But the Trump administration on Thursday signaled no interest in ensuring oil companies won't engage in price-fixing and collusion to boost profits at the expense of working families as the FTC overturned the order that prevented former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield and Hess CEO John Hess from serving on the boards of ExxonMobil and Chevron, respectively.
Exxon bought Pioneer for $59.5 billion last year, while Chevron's purchase of Hess was announced Friday after months of arbitration proceedings.
The FTC, now led by pro-corporate Republican Andrew Ferguson, said the commission's complaints about Sheffield's and Hess's communications with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not "plead any antitrust law violation" or show that the acquisitions of the smaller companies and the CEO's positions on the boards "would be anticompetitive."
The decision, said Elyse Schupak, a policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program, "undermines accountability for the CEOs accused of illegally colluding with OPEC to increase profits by driving up energy prices for American families and businesses."
Khan's investigation last year found the Sheffield had communicated with OPEC about slashing oil production and driving up consumer prices while claiming Biden administration policies were to blame, prompting U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) to say "jail time should seriously be considered" for the CEO.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior. But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction."
The FTC also found that Hess "stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged [OPEC] officials to take actions on these issues and speak about them at different events."
One analysis by Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project found that price-fixing schemes by corporations—not inflation—were to blame for 27% of the higher prices American families faced in 2021.
Khan on Thursday accused President Donald Trump's FTC of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
The commission's three Republican members voted to allow Sheffield and Hess to serve on the boards—even as one of them, Commissioner Mark Meador, said that OPEC operates "as a de facto cartel" and warned the FTC "should not hesitate to bring enforcement actions against actual collusion."
Ferguson, meanwhile, claimed that banning Sheffield and Hess from the company boards "would damage the FTC's credibility and undermine its mission"—a statement that was denounced by the government watchdog Revolving Door Project.
"Banning a C-suite executive who tried to inflate oil prices isn't the move that 'damages' the FTC's credibility. It's Andrew Ferguson's willingness to absolve such actions that undermines the agency's mission to promote competition," said the group.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior," added Revolving Door Project. "But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction—signaling to corporate America that they won't be held accountable for fleecing the public."
Schupak said that "while the Trump administration feigns interest in bringing energy prices down, its policies—fast-tracking export projects, rolling back regulatory safeguards, and halting enforcement actions for corporate wrongdoing—reveal the administration is far more interested in boosting the profitability of the oil and gas industry than providing Americans any relief or safeguarding them against corruption."
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102 House Democrats, Including Jeffries, Help GOP Send Crypto Bill to Trump's Desk
"Congress surrendered to the onslaught of crypto political spending and legitimized the world's biggest Ponzi scheme," said one GENIUS Act critic. "They also forfeited an opportunity to stop Trump's massive crypto grift."
Jul 17, 2025
More than 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives helped Republicans send what would be the country's first major cryptocurrency law to the desk of President Donald Trump, despite warnings that the legislation would not only further his corruption, but also "expose our financial stability, national security, and consumer protections to greater risk."
All but a dozen voting Republicans and 102 Democrats—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.)—supported the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which last month passed the Senate 68-30, with support from 18 Democrats.
If signed by the president, as is expected, the bill would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, which are pegged to the value of existing assets such as the U.S. dollar. The Trump family's World Liberty Financial has issued the stablecoin USD1.
@housedemocrats.bsky.social Shame on all of you. You have no foresight and no backbone.
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— Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Advocacy groups and Democrats critical of the GENIUS Act, and other bills making their way through Congress during "Crypto Week," have highlighted how the legislation would "bolster Trump's business empire while putting American interests at risk."
Leading House Democratic opposition to the GOP's package is Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who warned last week that "these bills would make Congress complicit in Trump's unprecedented crypto scam."
As Politico detailed Thursday:
Waters and other Democrats called for presidential ethics provisions to be added to the bills, pointing to the Trump family's business entanglements in the crypto industry. Trump and his sons have stakes in several crypto ventures, including a company they launched last year that issues a stablecoin and could benefit from the GENIUS bill that is now awaiting the president's signature.
But a growing bloc of the party has joined Republicans in lining up behind the digital asset industry's Washington agenda, a sign of crypto firms' ascendance as a political force. Companies in the crypto sector have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into influence efforts, and a mountain of super [political action committee] money is threatening to target lawmakers who stand in the way of the industry's goals.
After Thursday's vote, Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, declared that "today, House members piled venality onto perversion onto corruption. In approving this crypto-enabling bill, Congress surrendered to the onslaught of crypto political spending and legitimized the world's biggest Ponzi scheme."
"To add insult to injury," Naylor added, "they also forfeited an opportunity to stop Trump's massive crypto grift, some of the most heinous and flagrant corruption in American presidential history."
RM @repmaxinewaters.bsky.social slams Republicans’ UNSTABLE Act:“The UNSTABLE Act creates the appearance of a federal framework for #stablecoins, but it does not provide the Federal government with the full authority it needs.” | tinyurl.com/5t2skxvnWATCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQWy...
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— U.S. House Committee on Financial Services - Democrats (@ushousefsc.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 1:23 PM
In addition to sending the GENIUS Act to Trump, the House advanced two other crypto bills on Thursday: the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which would create a regulatory framework for digital asset markets, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
All Republicans present and 78 Democrats backed the CLARITY Act, while just Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Shri Thanedar (Mich.) voted alongside the GOP to pass the CBDC ban. Both of those bills still need Senate approval.
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How GOP's Crypto Bills Would Benefit Trump and His Family
Passing any bill that lets the president "enrich himself from deeper in the shadows is a recipe for American workers getting sold out to the highest bidder," warned the head of Accountable.US.
Jul 17, 2025
A new analysis details precisely how a slate of proposed cryptocurrency bills making their way through Congress this week, if passed, will enrich U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his family who are heavily invested in the crypto markets.
Republican leaders in the House of Representatives continued their fight to pass the GOP's cryptocurrency bills on Thursday, despite warnings from Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups that the legislation would personally benefit Trump.
As right-wing hard-liners on Wednesday thwarted Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) effort to advance the trio of bills, the watchdog Accountable.US released an analysis highlighting how the industry-backed package would "bolster Trump's business empire while putting American interests at risk."
The bills that the House is considering during "Crypto Week" are:
- the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which would create a regulatory framework for a type of cryptocurrency called stablecoin, and passed the Senate 68-30 last month;
- the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which would create a regulatory framework for digital asset markets; and
- the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The Accountable analysis focuses on the first two bills. The group's executive director, Tony Carrk, said in a statement that "the so-called GENIUS and CLARITY acts ironically do nothing to lift the cloak of mystery and unaccountability that shrouds the Trump family crypto interests around the world, leaving American interests at high risk."
"The president has already demonstrated he'll seemingly take money from anyone, even possible criminal elements and foreign adversaries," he noted. "So to pass a bill that lets Trump... enrich himself from deeper in the shadows is a recipe for American workers getting sold out to the highest bidder. The real clarity we have about this president is he fights to give his billionaire buddies a tax break and profit from his office while betraying the working Americans he claims to represent."
The CLARITY Act would "significantly" limit the regulatory role of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), "which already has been severely weakened under Trump and has oversight over many Trump crypto products," the analysis details. It would also "put the less robust Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) 'at the center' of digital asset regulation."
According to Accountable:
- Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which has made a "fast and furious" move into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, disclosed to the SEC that, "if Bitcoin is determined to constitute a security"—which it likely would not be under the CLARITY Act—it could "adversely affect" Bitcoin's price and the price of Trump Media's offerings.
- World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI) has disclosed to the SEC that its token sales to "non-U.S. persons" were not believed to be an issuance of securities subject to SEC oversight. In the same SEC filing, it disclosed President Trump as a WLFI "promoter," but curiously claimed he was not actually a promoter for federal Securities Act purposes. Under the CLARITY Act, WLFI could enjoy lighter regulation by the CFTC as a digital commodities platform—or, it could be "subject to almost no federal oversight" as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform run on automatic protocols, according to Wall Street watchdog Americans for Financial Reform.
- Just weeks after the $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins launched, the Trump SEC stated that meme coins are not subject to federal securities law, with one dissenting SEC commissioner calling the guidance "a roadmap for crypto enterprises looking to evade oversight by labeling themselves as a meme coin." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said the SEC was shortchanging average retail investors while helping "the president's bottom line." The CLARITY Act would likely shield Trump's meme coins even further from SEC oversight.
A coalition of over 80 groups—including Accountable.US, Americans for Financial Reform, and Demand Progress—wrote to Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday that the CLARITY Act "creates loopholes or confusing legal questions that crypto and non-crypto firms will exploit in order to evade existing regulatory standards, causing more damage."
"The legislation gives the shady practices and endemic fraud in the crypto industry a government imprimatur without adequate guardrails to protect investors and the financial system and unleashes and rewards the administration's crypto corruption," the coalition warned, urging members of the chamber to vote against the bil.
Meanwhile, the GENIUS Act would let banks and private entities issue stablecoins—which are pegged to the value of existing assets such as the U.S. dollar—with "light oversight" and could "enable corruption, screw over taxpayers, and potentially destabilize the economy," warns Accountable's new report.
The publication points out that the Trump family's WLFI has launched its own "USD1" stablecoin, which was used in a $2 billion transaction between MGX, a fund backed by the United Arab Emirates, and the crypto exchange Binance, "just weeks before the Trump administration dropped a securities case" against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.
WLFI also announced on social media Wednesday that investors in its token voted to make the crypto tradable on public exchanges. Sludge reported that "the decision could boost the token's price and directly benefit President Trump and his family, who hold billions of the tokens and have already reaped hundreds of millions from its early sales."
Warren, the report notes, has warned that the GENIUS Act would "create a superhighway for Donald Trump's corruption."
They’re calling it the GENIUS Act—but @repmaxinewaters.bsky.social isn’t buying it.She lays it out: Trump’s billionaire donors get richer, 17 million Americans lose health care, and now Congress wants to bless digital money that benefits his inner circle.
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— Accountable.US (@accountable.us) July 17, 2025 at 12:35 PM
After a handful of hard-line Republicans tanked a procedural vote on the crypto package Tuesday, Trump hosted a meeting at the White House and later announced a deal had been reached to pass the legislation.
However, when Wednesday came, "committee chairs pushed back at hard-liners' demands to attach a central bank digital currency ban" to the CLARITY Act, Politico reported. "The impasse kept the House rule vote open for nine hours until GOP leaders finally cut a late-night deal to include a CBDC ban in the National Defense Authorization Act."
Now, Johnson has to juggle the defense and crypto legislation with a Trump rescission package that Senate Republicans passed overnight. As Politico put it: "If something's got to give, watch to see whether all three cryptocurrency bills end up getting a vote this week as planned. One possibility under discussion is passing only the Senate-approved stablecoin bill, which Trump wants to sign as soon as possible, and punting the other votes."
Congressional Democrats are divided on the GOP package, and leadership is not whipping for or against it. Politico obtained a Monday notice from the office of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) that, according to the outlet, "sharply criticized both a crypto market structure bill and a Senate stablecoin measure that the lower chamber is slated to vote on, but did not tell members how to vote."
Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) are original co-sponsors of the CLARITY Act. Craig still wants Democrats to support the legislation, Semafor reported Tuesday, and both Davis and Torres joined Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) in a Monday letter urging their Democratic colleagues to vote for it, arguing that "although this bill is not without its shortcomings and may still be improved, inaction is not a viable option."
More Perfect Union on Tuesday published a report detailing how Davis, Torres, and Gottheimer have collectively taken millions from cryptocurrency industry executives and political groups. Responding to the findings on social media, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that "it's a terrible bill that basically endorses Trump's massive crypto corruption scheme. Democrats will regret voting for it."
It's not just Trump and his family who could benefit from the bills. A separate Washington Post analysis published Thursday found that "nearly 70 Trump administration officials and nominees held cryptocurrency or investments in blockchain or digital-asset companies at the time of their selection, with stakes ranging from small to more than $120 million."
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'It's Very MAGA!' Inflation Ticks Up as Trump Tariffs Push Consumer Prices Higher
"Today's inflation report confirms what we already knew: Trump's tariffs are a tax on working-class Americans and additional tariffs would hurt them even more."
Jul 15, 2025
Inflation figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics offered what economists described as early evidence that President Donald Trump's erratic tariff policies are driving up prices across the nation's economy, from household appliances to groceries to apparel.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 2.7% in June compared to the previous year, according to the new data—the highest reading since February. Separate figures released by the Labor Department showed that real wages declined slightly in June, underscoring the impact of rising prices.
"Trump's Big Beautiful tariffs are showing up in the data," wrote Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It's very MAGA!"
Baker highlighted coffee prices—which were up 2.2% in June—and noted that "prices will go much higher if Trump carries through with his threat of a 50% tax on coffee imported from Brazil because they are prosecuting someone for trying to overthrow the government."
According to the Labor Department, the "food at home" index—which tracks grocery costs—rose 0.3% in June and is up 2.4% compared to a year earlier. Beef and ice cream prices rose to record highs last month, and toys, shoes, and other categories also registered increases.
"The impact of tariffs is becoming more salient," said Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at Yale University's Budget Lab. "Apparel, which had seen cool inflation the last two months, grew 0.4% in June. Household furnishings grew 1%. Video and audio electronics grew 1.1%."
Leor Tal, campaign director at the progressive advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy, said in a statement that "today's inflation report confirms what we already knew: Trump's tariffs are a tax on working-class Americans and additional tariffs would hurt them even more."
"Republicans in Congress should intervene and put a stop to this, but so far they've just doubled down on policies that line the pockets of the ultra-rich while hurting hardworking families," said Tal.
"President Trump promised to bring prices down. Instead, he and Republicans have made things worse."
Democratic lawmakers immediately seized on the new government data as proof that, despite his campaign promises, Trump's agenda is driving up costs for American consumers—a problem that they said will intensify if the president follows through on the tariff threats he recently leveled at the European Union, Brazil, and other U.S. trading partners.
"For those saying we have not seen the impact of Trump's tariff wars, look at today's data," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "Americans continue to struggle with the costs of groceries and rent—and now prices of food and appliances are rising."
"Trump has announced even more tariffs, including 50% on Brazil and 30% on the European Union," Warren added. "Families were already getting crushed, and the president's making it worse."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, warned that the Republican budget measure that Trump signed into law earlier this month—which includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts primarily for the wealthy and historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance—"will raise costs even further, on everything from groceries to healthcare, all while showering billionaires with tax breaks."
"President Trump promised to bring prices down. Instead, he and Republicans have made things worse," said Boyle. "American families are already struggling, and they simply can't afford another round of this president's lies and his reckless economic policies."
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