A New York Times investigation reveals how the CFTC pushed out staff who raised concerns about Polymarket, Crypto.com, and Gemini Titan.
A New York Times investigation published Sunday, May 24, describes a yearlong campaign at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to remove career officials who had raised objections about three companies with direct ties to the Trump family: Polymarket, Crypto.com, and Gemini Titan. The investigation, written by journalists Sharon LaFraniere and David Yaffe-Bellany, is based on internal documents and interviews with more than 30 current and former agency employees and corporate executives.
The links between the three companies and the presidential family are direct. Polymarket received an investment from 1789 Capital, the venture capital fund partially owned by Donald Trump Jr., who also serves as an unpaid adviser. Crypto.com is a commercial partner of Trump Media & Technology Group, with which it signed an exclusive agreement in October to launch “Truth Predict” on Truth Social. Gemini’s founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, support American Bitcoin, the crypto company co-founded by Eric Trump.
According to the NYT, acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham and her senior adviser Brigitte Weyls intervened on behalf of each of the three companies, overriding objections from technical staff. Career officials had raised specific concerns: Crypto.com was not treating small bettors fairly, Polymarket lacked adequate anti-fraud protections, and Gemini Titan had not completed the mandatory review required to begin operations. By Christmas, two officials who had raised these concerns had been placed on forced leave, locked out of their offices, and subjected to internal investigation, without being told the reason. According to current and former employees, the message was clear: “Don’t cause problems for those industries.”
One emblematic episode involves Gemini Titan: while employees were in the middle of reviewing the approval application, Weyls allegedly sent them a draft memorandum recommending immediate approval — reversing standard practice in which technical staff write recommendations for commissioners. The application was “quickly approved.” Pham later left her position in December to join MoonPay, a crypto company that has an exclusive partnership with Polymarket. Weyls started in March as general counsel of Gemini Titan, the same company whose application she had pushed to approve.
The agency’s enforcement picture appears to have changed dramatically compared to previous administrations. Under the second Trump administration, the CFTC has announced only two cases involving digital assets, both against individual operators, compared to more than 80 cases during the Biden years and more than two dozen in Trump’s first term. The agency has also dropped at least five crypto investigations, including one in an advanced stage targeting a major exchange. Three senior officials in the enforcement office — including the division’s chief legal counsel, deputy director, and head of litigation attorneys — were themselves subjected to internal investigation in spring 2025, for vague reasons such as “the handling of certain enforcement matters.”
Adding further complexity to the picture is the agency’s governance structure. Chair Michael Selig, confirmed in December, is the only sitting commissioner, as Trump has yet to nominate replacements for the four vacant seats. This grants him unilateral authority to bring cases and issue rules in two industries directly tied to the presidential family’s business interests. House Agriculture Committee leaders recently urged Trump to fill the vacancies, stressing in a joint letter that the CFTC would be “at its best with a five-member commission,” capable of ensuring “better regulations, stronger rules, and greater responsiveness to the divergent views of stakeholders.” It should be noted that Trump’s originally designated predecessor, Brian Quintenz, had his nomination withdrawn in late September after the Winklevoss twins lobbied against him, according to the NYT, because he had refused to commit to supporting a Gemini complaint against the agency’s own lawyers.
Reactions to the investigation were immediate. The White House rejected its findings: spokesman Davis Ingle told the NYT that “President Trump acts only in the best interest of the American public” and that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote on X that “the CFTC has become a vile tool of prediction markets and shadowy crypto companies,” calling on Congress to slow down on crypto legislation. Amanda Fischer, financial policy director at Better Markets and former SEC chief of staff, called the reporting “a bombshell investigation into a systemic culture of crypto and prediction market corruption at the CFTC,” arguing that the findings should reopen debate on the CLARITY Act, the crypto market structure bill that would grant the CFTC broad new authority over digital commodity spot markets. The Senate Banking Committee had voted 15 to 9 to advance the measure earlier in the month.
