Blumenthal asks Treasury and DOJ to investigate Tether over USDT use by Iran

Unchained reported that Democratic staff on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, working for ranking member Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, released a report on Monday analyzing 846 wallets that OFAC and Israel's counter-terror financing bureau have sanctioned or targeted for seizure over links to Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The staff say 84% of those wallets 'have transacted exclusively, or nearly exclusively, in USDT' and describe their findings as preliminary. The report breaks that share down by list, with 87% across the 757 wallets on Israel's list and 57% across the 101 on OFAC's, counting a wallet when more than 80% of its dollar volume was in USDT, and Bitcoin placed a distant second on both lists. Blumenthal asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche to investigate Tether's anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance and to tell the subcommittee by Oct. 9 whether either department narrowed, paused or closed an earlier inquiry. The letters cite reporting that Manhattan federal prosecutors opened a Tether investigation in October 2024 and that Treasury weighed sanctioning the company, and they say Cantor Fitzgerald owns 5% of Tether, a firm 'until recently' run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick before his children took control. Unchained is the only outlet with this report so far, the staff label their numbers preliminary, and no response from Treasury, DOJ or Tether is on record.