Senate's top Democratic investigator looking into Tether payments to Bo Hines' firm

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal has added another Tether probe to the many irons he has in crypto fires, this time demanding answers about reported payments the company made to a firm owned by Bo Hines — the former White House crypto adviser who is now in charge of the U.S. arm of Tether.

Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent letters Thursday to Tether and to the consulting company Hines started with his father and another partner, Nxum Group.

"The highly unusual terms and nature of Tether’s business relationship with both Nxum and Bo Hines raise alarming ethical and legal concerns, indicating that Tether was likely well aware of the illegality and impropriety of issuing payments to a current White House official with such a direct role in shaping cryptocurrency legislation that was instrumental to its business," Blumenthal wrote to Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Nxum had received large payments for consulting work for Tether when Hines was still advising President Donald Trump and his administration on crypto policy (including on stablecoin issuers significant to Tether). Blumenthal requested details of those business arrangements.

Spokespeople for Tether didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

CoinDesk had been first to report earlier that Hines' company — which had little track record or experience in politics — was making millions of dollars as the main campaign-advertising provider for a political action committee associated with Tether.

Hines' family firm, Nxum, has recently hired another official that worked as a White House crypto adviser, Harry Jung. The office that advised Trump on crypto issues has since gone vacant, with the departure of Patrick Witt, who had replaced Hines as its executive director.

Blumenthal has been focusing significant attention on crypto, including on Trump's memecoin, crypto backers of the president's projects, Trump family crypto firm World Liberty Financial, activities at Binance and especially on Tether. He issued a report on its financial connections to Iran, and he more recently demanded answers about Tether's connection to its U.S. financial partner, Cantor Fitzgerald.

Tether's Ardoino criticized the senator's work this week, saying Blumenthal ignored important information and shared his report with the press before giving the company a look or a chance to respond.

Though Blumenthal's party has been in the Senate minority during Trump's time in office, the still-narrow odds of Democrats taking back that chamber have improved in recent weeks. If Blumenthal returns to chair the investigations subcommittee, it would grant him significantly greater powers to subpoena and control the agenda, and he's made it clear that crypto would be high on his list of topic areas. Prediction market Kalshi gives Democrats a 69% chance at the moment.