U.S. President Donald Trump met with advisers on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, to discuss an ethics proposal tied to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, according to a report filed early Sunday by POLITICO congressional reporter Jasper Goodman.
The meeting came four days before the United States Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the crypto market-structure bill on Tuesday, Sept. 15. What conclusions the president reached, if any, were not disclosed at the time of publication.
The Report
Goodman posted the disclosure on X at 00:10:53 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in a post that linked to a POLITICO Pro article titled “Trump met with advisers about crypto bill ethics proposal.”
Goodman wrote that it was “unclear what came out of the discussion” and that the meeting preceded the Senate floor vote set for Tuesday. The POLITICO Pro article carrying the report was published behind the outlet’s subscriber-only platform.
Neither the White House nor Senate negotiators had issued a public readout of Friday’s meeting as of early Sunday. Goodman’s post is the first public indication that Trump personally reviewed the ethics file again this week.
The Vote Calendar
The Senate is scheduled to hold a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, at approximately 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. Cloture, the procedural step that ends debate on a motion in the Senate, requires 60 votes in the 100-member chamber. A successful cloture vote would only open floor debate. It would not pass the bill.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the current Senate. If every Republican votes to proceed, the measure would still require at least seven Democrats or independents to reach the 60-vote threshold. Some public vote counts have put the need higher if one or more Republicans oppose cloture. The Crypto Times has previously reported on the vote math ahead of Tuesday’s test.
What the Bill Would Do
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, commonly referred to as the CLARITY Act, would divide federal oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the federal securities regulator, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal derivatives regulator. It would also set rules for intermediaries, custody arrangements, stablecoins, and certain decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
The House of Representatives passed its version of the measure by a vote of 294 to 134 in July 2025, with 78 Democrats joining Republicans. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the Senate companion by a vote of 15 to 9 on May 14, 2026. Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) were the only Democrats to vote yes. The bill was placed on the Senate legislative calendar on June 1, 2026.
Why the Ethics Language Is the Sticking Point
Ethics language has been the central political obstacle to the bill since the committee vote. Democrats have argued that no federal crypto rulebook should move without limits on how sitting officials, including the president, can issue, sponsor, or profit from digital assets. Republicans and the White House have argued that any restriction should apply across the federal government rather than single out Trump or his family.
The financial disclosure released by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the executive branch agency that oversees federal conflict-of-interest rules, on July 1, 2026, showed that Trump earned approximately $1.4 billion in crypto-related income in 2025. Democrats have used that figure as a reference point for their objections.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a July 22, 2026 statement that the draft ethics section “does nothing to prevent him from vacuuming up his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits.”
The Crypto Times has covered the recent slowdown in bipartisan ethics talks in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote.
What the Current Ethics Text Does
A working draft first circulated on July 22, 2026, and carried into the September text, added an ethics section near the end of the bill. According to contemporaneous reporting on that draft, the provision:
- Bars public officials and employees, and their spouses, from issuing or sponsoring digital assets while in office.
- Continues to allow officials to hold and invest in crypto.
- Does not extend the issuance ban to children of officials.
- Assigns enforcement to the Department of Justice (DOJ), with no independent authority for state attorneys general.
- Ceases to have “force and effect on and after noon on January 20, 2029,” the scheduled end of the current presidential term.
The Tillis-Gallego Counteroffer
Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) sent the White House a bipartisan ethics counterproposal in late July and early August 2026. According to POLITICO reporting on the language, citing people familiar with the talks, the counteroffer would bar federal elected officials and judges from issuing or sponsoring digital assets, require officials to divest an ownership stake in a digital asset company if the stake was worth more than $1 million and represented 10% or more of the firm’s value, or place related interests in a blind trust, and permit state attorneys general to sue the DOJ to force enforcement.
The White House and a group of Senate Republicans have opposed granting state attorneys general that role.
The Sept. 10 Substitute
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), the lead Senate sponsor of the CLARITY Act, released an updated substitute of the bill running roughly 630 pages on Sept. 10, 2026, according to a press release published by her office. Lummis said the draft incorporated more than 114 provisions requested by Democratic colleagues. The updated text is posted on her Senate website.
The publicly identified changes in the substitute include a requirement that trading protocols that are not decentralized register with the CFTC and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, alignment of those rules with intermediary treatment already applied on the securities side, and expanded authority for credit unions to deal in crypto. The ethics section and a separate dispute over stablecoin yield were left unchanged. The Crypto Times has reported on the revised text and its new DeFi provisions.
What the White House Has Said
Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, has been the administration’s lead negotiator on the bill. In an interview with Semafor published Sept. 9, Witt said Trump had already agreed to a “historic ethics provision” restricting federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.
He declined to say whether new language had been presented to the president, and said it was “certainly possible” that Trump would refuse further concessions. Witt described a state-attorney-general enforcement model as “unreasonable.”
Witt has also said a failed Sept. 15 vote would create uncertainty about when the bill could return, a warning that has been reported by The Crypto Times. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged the Senate on Sept. 9 to resume work on the measure.
What Happens if Cloture Fails
A failed cloture vote would not formally repeal the bill. It would close the last comfortable 2026 legislative window. The House has canceled later September voting weeks and is moving toward the November 2026 midterm campaign calendar. Even if the Senate later passed a substitute, the House would have to approve the same text, or both chambers would have to use a lame-duck session after Nov. 3, 2026.
Friday’s meeting does not change the vote math on its own. It confirms that the ethics file remained on the president’s desk 48 hours before senators had to take a public position.
Also Read: Coinbase CFO Says It Has SEC-CFTC Backup Plan if CLARITY Act Stalls
