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Senate CLARITY Draft Adds Ethics Division With DOJ Enforcement, 2029 Sunset
The Senate CLARITY Act draft runs 616 pages with a DOJ-enforced ethics division that sunsets in 2029. Thune said the bill likely will not clear before the August recess. Trump's $1.4B crypto income drove the ethics push.
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The Senate's merged CLARITY Act draft landed on July 22 at 616 pages with 104 sections, Galaxy Research said. Tucked into the text is a six-section government-ethics division enforced by the Justice Department that sunsets at noon on January 20, 2029.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he did not expect the bill to clear the chamber before the summer recess, Decrypt reported. The published floor schedule runs through Friday, August 7. That gives a narrow window for any floor action before a long break.
Negotiators linked ethics rules to market structure after the U.S. Office of Government Ethics disclosed that President Donald J. Trump generated at least $1.4 billion in crypto-related income during 2025, Bloomberg Law reported. Democrats pushed for conflict-of-interest guardrails in the merged text. The sunset date is the compromise: ethics provisions expire at the next presidential inauguration, forcing a future Congress to revisit them with data in hand.
Agencies would have one year from enactment to implement the ethics constraints, CoinDesk reported. DOJ handles enforcement. The division covers prohibitions and disclosure rules for officials with direct policy or enforcement authority over digital assets.