I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Trump and His Family's Crypto Firm Face Court Over $2 Billion in UAE-Linked Deals
A federal lawsuit filed in Washington on Thursday accuses President Donald Trump and World Liberty Financial of taking more than $2 billion tied to the United Arab Emirates, in breach of the US Constitution.
The case was brought by J. Benjamin Greenberg, a former employee of Circle Internet Group.
He is suing on Circle's behalf as a shareholder, which makes it a derivative action.
The defendants include Trump, World Liberty, four related limited liability companies and Steve Witkoff, the US Special Envoy to the Middle East.
— SolanaFloor (@SolanaFloor) October 23, 2026NEWS: A @Circle shareholder has sued @realDonaldTrump in federal court over alleged unconstitutional foreign benefits tied to his crypto ventures.
The lawsuit centers on a $2B UAE-backed investment in Binance settled using @worldlibertyfi’s $USD1 stablecoin.
The shareholder… pic.twitter.com/Xs2PLoLI7I
Who Is Behind the Case, and Why Does Circle Say It Is Not Involved?
Greenberg is a software engineer who once worked at Circle and holds about 10,000 Class A shares in the company.
Circle is a publicly traded stablecoin issuer and a direct competitor of World Liberty.
His argument is that the Trump venture's UAE-linked deals handed it a "competitive advantage that Circle cannot match", causing harm to Circle and its investors.
— Brainrot Labs (@Brainrot_Labs) October 22, 2026🇺🇸 A Circle shareholder is taking Trump and $WLFI to court over crypto deals linked to the UAE.
Joel Greenberg, a former Circle software engineer who reportedly holds around 10,000 shares, has filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit in federal court in Washington, alleging… pic.twitter.com/rFDnfmp0Rd
Circle moved quickly to put distance between itself and the case.
A company spokesperson said,
"This lawsuit was filed by an individual shareholder, not by Circle. Circle did not initiate, direct, authorize, or participate in the filing."
What Does the Constitution Say About Foreign Money?
The complaint rests on the Foreign Emoluments Clause.
It bars federal officeholders from accepting money or gifts from foreign officials without the consent of Congress.
Great, now don’t forget Trump:
— Law Times Daily (@LawTimesDaily) October 22, 2026
⁰The Constitution bars any federal officeholder from accepting "any present, Emolument… of any kind whatever" from a foreign state without Congress's consent. Trump never asked. Here's what he and his family have taken instead.
⁰Abu Dhabi: Four…
The filing is blunt in its language.
It states,
"No president in American history has profited from his office so brazenly.”
It goes further, arguing that the technical vocabulary around the deals should not hide their nature.
"Although the President has dressed his corrupt arrangements in the language of new technology — tokens and stablecoins, holding companies and reserve yields,"
The lawsuit says, "that vocabulary must not obscure what this is: the oldest form of public corruption, a public official taking money from a foreign power."
How Did a $500 Million Stake Sale Become the Centre of the Dispute?
The first deal dates back to the days before Trump's inauguration in January 2025.
An investment vehicle backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser, agreed to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty for $500 million.
Tahnoon is widely known as the "Spy Sheikh" because of his role in the country's intelligence network.
The complaint says Eric Trump signed off on the sale on 16 January 2025.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the transaction in January 2026.
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 2, 2026🇦🇪🇺🇸 Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE president’s brother and a powerful intelligence-linked investor dubbed the “spy sheikh,” secretly bought a 49% stake in the Trump family’s crypto venture World Liberty Financial for $500 million in January 2025, WSJ reports.
The… pic.twitter.com/9Pgxycoydg
World Liberty told the newspaper that Trump had no involvement in the deal.
The company has also said he currently has no role there.
Even so, the complaint alleges that "millions of dollars from that deal, routed from a foreign government, flowed to President Trump after he assumed office", a line written by Greenberg's attorney, Karianne Jones.
Was the $2 Billion Stablecoin Purchase a Scheme?
The second transaction involves MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment fund chaired by Tahnoon.
In May 2025, it bought $2 billion of USD1, the stablecoin issued by World Liberty.
There’s more: In May 2025, *another* Tahnoon-owned company called MGX made a $2 billion investment into the U.S.-sanctioned Chinese crypto colossus Binance. Reportedly at MGX’s insistence, the currency used for the transaction was … World Liberty Financial’s USD1! pic.twitter.com/atCwi9XoI8
— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) July 9, 2026
The lawsuit describes this as a scheme to inflate the value of the president's crypto holdings.
Jones wrote,
"The corrupt purchase handed President Trump millions of dollars in interest and dramatically expanded the circulation of his stablecoin overnight.”
How Much Has the Trump Family Made From Crypto?
Trump's 2025 financial disclosure reported more than $1.4 billion in crypto-related income, including nearly $800 million linked to World Liberty.
— HYPEconomist (@HYPEconomist) July 2, 20262025 crypto earnings
trump: $1.4 billion
hyperliquid: 800million
givemeonegoodreasonwhyishouldn'tsellmy
HYPE to buy $TRUMPpic.twitter.com/DCzoR7aCVj
A family-affiliated entity owns about 38% of the company.
Trump does not hold direct shares.
World Liberty has had a very different story for retail investors.
Its WLFI token traded at roughly 45 cents in August 2025 and had slipped to about 5 cents by the end of June 2026.
This means holders have suffered steep losses even as the president's income has grown.
What Does Greenberg Want the Court to Do?
Greenberg is asking for a declaration that the profits breach the Constitution.
He also wants the court to order the return of any profits found to be illegal, and to require disclosure of any other foreign crypto payments Trump has received.
He is also seeking compensatory and punitive damages, though no figure has been set.
His lawyers say the aim goes beyond money.
Matt Pelikan, an attorney at Evergreen Legal, which represents Greenberg, said,
"We're suing to stop the corruption and to force President Trump to return the profits to American taxpayers.”
— J. Canfield (@CreativeBoulder) October 22, 2026'Lawsuit accuses @realDonaldTrump of illegally profiting off foreign crypto deals'
"We're suing to stop the corruption and to force @POTUS Trumo to return the profits to American taxpayers," attorney Matt Pelikan told @CNBC. @whitehouse
https://t.co/psPpAOsvsx
How Have Trump's Side and World Liberty Responded?
World Liberty rejected the claims outright.
Spokesperson David Wachsman said,
"World Liberty Financial is compliant with all US laws and regulations. No one at World Liberty Financial works for the US government. These claims are without merit and we look forward to resolving them in court."
The White House was just as firm.
Spokesperson Anna Kelly said "there are no conflicts of interest" and called the case "frivolous".
She said
"This is yet another frivolous lawsuit that echoes the same, tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade.”
A spokesperson for Witkoff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Why Is Washington Watching the UAE Links So Closely?
The UAE connection has already drawn attention on Capitol Hill.
Months after Tahnoon's investment in 2025, the administration widened UAE access to advanced US AI chips, including for G42, a state-backed AI company he controls.
Lawmakers have asked for information about those dealings.
They have also indicated that Trump family business transactions could face further investigation if Democrats win subpoena power after the 2026 midterms.
The president's crypto income has also fed a wider political fight.
The $1.4 billion disclosure drew criticism from congressional Democrats and has been cited as a factor in the failure of the Clarity Act, which was meant to set market rules for digital assets.