Blumenthal Demands Tether Records on Payments to Bo Hines Firm Nxum
Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent letters to Tether and Nxum Group, the firm co-founded by Bo Hines, seeking payment records, crypto wallet addresses and lobbying communications by Nov. 3 over reported payments made while Hines was a White House crypto adviser.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants to know what Tether paid a consulting firm co-founded by Bo Hines while Hines was still advising the White House on crypto policy. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations sent letters Thursday to Tether and to Nxum Group, the firm Hines started with his father and another partner.
Hines is now Tether's top U.S. executive, a post he took after leaving his role as White House crypto adviser. The letters seek details of reported payments Tether made to Nxum during his time in government, and Blumenthal asked both companies to hand over payment records, crypto wallet addresses and lobbying communications by Nov. 3.
The letter to Tether, posted on the committee site, requests information on the company's payments to Nxum and to Hines.
Blumenthal framed the arrangement as a possible legal problem, not just an optics one:
"The highly unusual terms and nature of Tether's business relationship with both Nxum and Bo Hines raise alarming ethical and legal concerns, indicating that Tether was likely well aware of the illegality and impropriety of issuing payments to a current White House official with such a direct role in shaping cryptocurrency legislation that was instrumental to its business"
Sen. Richard Blumenthal
The letters follow a Wall Street Journal report last week that Nxum received large payments for consulting work for Tether while Hines was advising President Trump and his administration. Earlier reporting also found that Nxum, a firm with little political track record, was earning millions of dollars as the main campaign-advertising provider for a political action committee associated with Tether.
The personnel threads keep tangling. Nxum has since hired Harry Jung, another former White House crypto adviser, while the White House crypto office itself has sat vacant since Patrick Witt, who replaced Hines as executive director, departed. Our earlier coverage tracked Hines' move to Tether and the handover to Witt.
Tether spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the letters. CEO Paulo Ardoino did take aim at Blumenthal earlier this week, though over a different matter: he said the senator ignored important information in an earlier report and shared it with the press before giving the company a chance to respond.
Why it matters
Blumenthal has pursued Tether for some time, including a report on its financial connections to Iran and, more recently, a demand for answers about its relationship with Cantor Fitzgerald. The Nxum letters turn that scrutiny toward the revolving door between government and the stablecoin industry, asking whether money moved to a firm tied to an official while he was helping shape the rules that firm's client would live under.
His leverage could grow. Prediction market Kalshi gives Democrats a 69% chance of winning the Senate, and if Blumenthal then chairs the subcommittee, he would gain greater subpoena power.
