The Wall Street billionaire who is heading the transition team in charge of staffing the incoming Trump administration is one of the candidates who could become the next Treasury secretary, according to a report.
Howard Lutnick, CEO of private investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, is a top ally of Trump who is heading his transition team.
Since Trump’s blowout election victory last Tuesday, Lutnick has been gathering the names of people who will fill thousands of jobs in the incoming administration.
“We’ve got so many candidates,” Lutnick told CNN on Oct. 31. “We are so set up — I feel great.”
Lutnick and transition team co-chair Linda McMahon are tasked with filling some 4,000 positions in the federal government. That includes everyone from the secretary of State and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part time on boards and commissions.
Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control.
If Trump were to tap Lutnick to head Treasury, it could potentially pose a conflict of interest since he would have oversight of possible sanctions that would be imposed against Tether, a digital stablecoin that was launched in 2014 and is pegged to the US dollar, according to the report.
In press interviews, Lutnick has promoted Tether. Cantor Fitzgerald also manages a substantial portion of Tether’s reserve assets, in particular US Treasury bonds that back the cryptocurrency.
Lutnick could also occupy a senior post in the Trump administration that would give him influence over decisions related to cryptocurrency — posing yet another potential conflict of interest.
The Treasury Department has been investigating Tether since before Lutnick became involved in Trump’s campaign, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Washington Post.
Treasury officials stressed that any possible sanctions that could be imposed on Tether are unrelated to Lutnick’s political activities, according to the newspaper.
Cryptocurrency stocks soared in the aftermath of Trump’s emphatic election victory last Tuesday. During the campaign, Trump pledged to appoint industry-friendly officials to top posts — ushering in an era of deregulation.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, blew past its previous record and reached an all-time high of $83,361 per unit on Monday.
As of Monday, Tether had a market capitalization of $123.5 billion, according to cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase.
In January, Lutnick told Bloomberg News that he can personally vouch for the authenticity of Tether’s financial statements, telling the financial media outlet: “They have the money they say they have.”
But investigators at the Treasury Department have been looking into alleged ties between the cryptocurrency and international criminals.
Tether could be hit with sanctions by the federal government over allegations that it has facilitated transactions for Mexican drug cartels.
There are also concerns that terrorist organizations like the Palestinian group Hamas is using cryptocurrency to finance their operations.
In October of last year, The Wall Street Journal cited Israeli government seizure orders and blockchain analytics reports indicating that Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad raised tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency in the months leading up to the Oct. 7 attacks.
“Tether is being used for terrorist funding and more widely being used in crypto frauds and scams,” Adam Zarazinski, CEO of crypto currency intelligence firm Inca Digital, told The Post in February.
The transactions were processed primarily through Tether, according to the report.
Tether officials said the $93 million reported by The Journal “is wildly overstated and inaccurate.”
For months, Tether has been the subject of scrutiny by federal investigators who say the cryptocurrency is used by Russia to facilitate payment and to circumvent sanctions that were placed on the country in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In June, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network published an advisory alleging that transnational criminal groups were using Tether and other digital currencies to buy equipment and chemicals from Chinese suppliers.
Tether has denied the allegations.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, wrote on X last month that there was “no indication that Tether is under investigation.”
Tether also released a statement saying it “has no knowledge of any such investigations into the company.”
The Post has sought comment from Lutnick, Tether and the Treasury Department.
