Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, held between $1 million and $5 million in Coinbase shares at the end of 2025, according to a newly released annual financial disclosure CNBC reviewed. The filing, which had not been previously reported, lists the position as vested stock in the crypto exchange — a company Hassett advised from 2021 until January 2025, just before he joined the administration.
The disclosure covers only 2025, so it doesn’t establish whether Hassett still owns the shares today. The White House declined to answer CNBC’s questions on that point and on whether the holdings have kept him from working on matters under his own office’s purview.
A recusal with unclear boundaries
Hassett has said he removed himself from crypto-related work while ethics officials sorted out his situation. In June 2025, he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he had not sold the shares in part because he didn’t want to appear to be timing a sale, adding that he had received guidance from “the ethics people” and was working out “what needs to be done.”
“Meanwhile, I have recused from any matter that’s related to crypto,” he said at the time.
The White House says that recusal is still in force. “Since day one, Kevin Hassett has and continues to be in full compliance with all ethical requirements, including his recusal from all cryptocurrency-related matters,” spokesperson Kush Desai told CNBC.
What a recusal actually looks like day to day is less clear. Which meetings, decisions or policy discussions Hassett has stepped away from — and how much of his work as NEC director has been affected — hasn’t been spelled out. The final report from the crypto working group lists Robin Colwell, a deputy assistant to the president for national economic policy, as the NEC’s representative rather than Hassett.
An office at the center of crypto policy
Three days into his second term, President Donald Trump created the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets inside the NEC. The executive order named Hassett’s position, or a designee, as a member and routed the group’s final recommendations to Trump through Hassett’s office. Chaired by then-White House crypto advisor David Sacks, the group proposed broad changes to digital-asset markets, banking, stablecoin rules and taxation. The administration has since rolled back Biden-era crypto policies, established a government bitcoin reserve and pressed Congress toward a wider federal framework.
Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at the Democracy Defenders Fund, said the arrangement raises red flags. “I think he’s got a major conflict of interest, or the appearance of one,” Canter told CNBC.
She also questioned how far a recusal can realistically reach. If Hassett’s withdrawal covered crypto broadly, it could have pulled him away from a central part of the job — coordinating economic policy across agencies including Treasury, Commerce, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, all of which sat on the working group.
“Crypto was a major initiative of the Trump administration,” Canter said. “Did [Hassett] not review anything in crypto? Did he not participate in any meeting with the administration on policy? Did everyone know not to talk about crypto around him? I doubt it.”
Coinbase’s stakes in Washington
The cryptocurrency industry has become a significant source of personal income for Trump as well. He reported more than $1.4 billion in income from family crypto ventures in 2025, including through Trump-linked World Liberty Financial.
Coinbase, whose shares have fallen sharply since Trump returned to office, has been a central player in the sector’s lobbying drive. Just over a month into Trump’s term, the SEC dismissed with prejudice its enforcement lawsuit against the exchange, meaning the same claim can’t be refiled. The agency said the move was meant to smooth its broader regulatory overhaul and was not a judgment on the merits of the 2023 case, which accused Coinbase of running an unregistered securities exchange and failing to properly register its staking program.
The company was also a major backer of the Fairshake super PAC and its affiliates in the 2024 elections, and crypto groups have kept spending heavily ahead of this year’s midterms. Coinbase has pledged another $25 million for the midterm cycle as the industry pushes Congress to pass digital-asset rules.
CEO Brian Armstrong has met repeatedly with Trump and senior White House officials — attending the March 2025 crypto summit, meeting privately with Trump this March and returning to the White House in August as the president pressed Congress on the Clarity Act. On Thursday, Armstrong told CNBC the bill was “ready to get a yes vote” ahead of a key Senate vote expected Sept. 15, and said that even if it fails, SEC and CFTC rulemaking would deliver clarity. “We’re going to get regulatory clarity one way or another,” he said.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/10/kevin-hassett-coinbase-stock-trump-crypto-recusal.html
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