Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, on Thursday prodded Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould to reject World Liberty Financial’s application for a trust bank charter, warning he could become “an accomplice” to corruption if the Trump family-led crypto firm gains approval. 

During the Senate Banking Committee’s hearing with prudential regulators, Warren called on Gould to share with her and the panel’s chair, Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, the unredacted charter application filed by World Liberty Financial.

WLF submitted an application to the OCC in January, seeking a national trust bank charter. That license would allow the company to offer digital asset custody and stablecoin conversion services but not deposit-taking capacity.

“If you follow the law, you will reject the president’s application,” Warren, the committee’s ranking member, told Gould on Thursday. “As soon as you approve that application – and we all know you’re going to approve it – you go from being a cheerleader for President Trump to an accomplice in his corruption.”   

Just before President Donald Trump was sworn into office, the United Arab Emirates acquired a 49% stake in WLF, Warren said. She asked Gould whether WLF disclosed in its charter application that the UAE company was a principal shareholder in the proposed trust bank. Gould declined to discuss specific details of the application.

OCC regulations require charter applicants to disclose all shareholders with at least a 10% direct or indirect stake in the proposed bank, Warren noted. Failing to file a biographical and financial report with the OCC would be grounds for the application’s dismissal, she said. 

“Evidently, you have not dismissed the application, so I assume the disclosure was made. Will you show Chairman Scott and me an unredacted application so that we can see that for ourselves and see that you are, in fact, following the law?” Warren asked Gould.

“The only thing to which I will commit is following our established procedures, which are outlined in the regulations that you provided, as well as the 131 pages in the comptroller’s licensing manual,” Gould said. 

Warren repeated her request, saying she’d like to see the application to verify the appropriate disclosures were made. Gould responded that he would “be happy to entertain your request and discuss with my team and make sure that we’re doing and affording you the same privileges that we have afforded past administrations.” 

“I don’t know that anyone’s ever had to ask that before because I don’t think any president has ever had a pending bank application before,” Warren shot back. 

Warren described WLF as “at the center of perhaps the most disgraceful presidential corruption scandal in U.S. history – an American president who sells out our national security to make money for himself.”

“If you grant World Liberty a bank charter, you will be a party to that,” Warren warned Gould, adding that he has a conflict of interest since he serves at the pleasure of the president. 

“Consistent with my statutory obligations, we will process that application as we process all applications,” Gould told Warren. “And I would note that the only political pressure I have felt from any part of the United States Government, Senator, is from you.”

“Well, it is pressure to follow the law,” she replied. 

Warren this week sent letters grilling Gould; Travis Hill, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.; and Palmer Luckey, the founder of Erebor Bank, on the regulators’ “rapid” approval of a bank charter and deposit insurance for Erebor, “following circulation of a troubling investor memo that suggested Luckey’s political network would ensure approval.”

The memo reportedly mentioned an Erebor co-founder had “unique connectivity to banking regulators,” including Gould, Warren said. 

Erebor received a national bank charter this month, after being granted conditional approval in October. The FDIC approved the company’s application for deposit insurance in December. 

Warren sought answers from Hill, Luckey and Gould by March 12. 

“If my inquiry reveals that Erebor’s national bank charter was not granted in accordance with law and regulation, and instead represented a corrupt political favor to the President’s billionaire supporters in Silicon Valley, it would have to be terminated,” Warren wrote to Gould.