Howard Lutnick, the Wall Street CEO leading Donald Trump’s transition operation, is facing accusations from some Trump insiders that he is improperly mixing his business interests with his duties in defending a potential administration.
Anxiety among Trump loyalists has been exacerbated by the belief that Lutnick has tried to sideline many aides and advisers who worked in the first Trump administration, hoping instead to fill the second administration with new people who could be personally useful to him.
The concerns were described by two people close to Trump, who said they have risen all the way to the ex-president himself. They have fueled speculation that Lutnick may be demoted or have to report on transition issues to another Trump loyalist.
Lutnick’s camp rejects the accusations of double-dealing and suggests it is a smear by a number of ex-Trump officials involved with Project 2025 – the now-defunct Heritage Foundation project that has become a political albatross for Trump – who being angry at Lutnick for refusing to do this. consider them as key positions.
“The entire transition team is solely focused on ensuring that President Trump achieves victory and is ready to immediately begin building his historic second administration with committed individuals who will advance his America First agenda,” said Lutnick said in a statement.
The most serious allegations allege that Lutnick attends meetings on Capitol Hill in his role as co-chair of the transition, then allegedly takes the opportunity to discuss matters affecting his investment firm, Cantor Fitzgerald – including high-profile regulatory issues stake regarding its cryptocurrency activities.
“You can’t do that on behalf of President Trump,” said a senior Trump ally, who like others was granted anonymity to describe the internal concerns.
Another person, a senior Republican official, said it was “completely vague” to even suggest Lutnick would operate in dual and potentially contradictory roles: “It’s up to him not to use the power in an illegitimate way , and that is not the case. has been the case.”
A person close to Lutnick acknowledged that he had attended both transition and business-related meetings on the Hill on the same day, but argued that he had kept a firewall between the two. Transition staff are not coming to his business meetings, the person said, and business staff are not going to transition meetings.
Lutnick, 63, is a longtime personal friend of Trump who has led Cantor Fitzgerald since 1991 — including the loss of 658 employees in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. More recently, he has emerged as the key Trump’s link with Wall Street, raising millions for his re-election efforts and winning the support of fellow financiers.
“There is no one more loyal and capable than Howard, which is why my father selected him to help assemble the greatest collection of talent to ever serve in the American government,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a statement to POLITICO.
That close relationship – Trump spoke highly of him on the campaign trail last week – makes the person close to Lutnick doubt whether he himself might be sidelined.
While the precise focus of Lutnick’s talks in Washington remains unclear, his lobbying work highlights the series of business entanglements looming over his role leading the Trump transition — and a possible job in a second administration.
This includes Cantor Fitzgerald’s relationship with one of the most controversial crypto companies in the world, Tether, which issues a digital token tied to the value of the US dollar. Tether has been linked to a series of illegal financial scandals around the world, and critics have raised concerns about its stability, but Lutnick has vouched for the company’s legitimacy, saying Cantor Fitzgerald manages its assets. Tether did not respond to a request for comment.
With Trump vowing to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.” and his allies on Capitol Hill shopping legislation If that were to change the way crypto companies are regulated, Lutnick could give the company a powerful ally in the former president’s orbit.
“I think it’s an invitation for trouble to have someone from the crypto industry picking financial regulators,” said Richard W. Painter, who served as a White House ethics attorney under former President George W. Bush and has since risen to one a Trump critic.
Also playing a role in the cloud surrounding Lutnick’s dealings is his top DC lobbyist, Jeff Miller – a longtime friend and ally of former chairman Kevin McCarthy who, according to lobby fileshas been working on a major cryptocurrency law for a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald since December – well before the transition began.
Several Trump officials have accused Miller of wading into transition-related matters and accompanying Lutnick to the Hill.
In a statement to POLITICO, Miller emphasized that he is not and has not been involved in conversations about the transition, which focused solely on Lutnick’s business interests. One person on Capitol Hill who attended a transition meeting with Lutnick said Miller was not present.
If Lutnick mixes his business affairs with Trump’s transition work, it could create the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to ethics watchdogs and experts, although it likely wouldn’t break any law.
“It looks bad and smells bad, even if it’s not outright illegal,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legal affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group.
Lutnick’s business interests extend beyond Cantor Fitzgerald: his latest venture, a financial exchange called FMX, is currently under pressure over a plan to transact certain transactions related to U.S. government debt through London. Its main rival, Chicago-based CME Group, has asked supervisors to scrutinize Lutnick’s plan, which could pit his exchange against officials from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Treasury Department.
Virginia Canter, chief ethics adviser at the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has followed Trump’s past ethical issuessaid Lutnick could send a worrying signal about how a second administration would operate.
“If the head of transition doesn’t have a handle on these issues, I think this is a harbinger of things to come,” she said.
Lutnick’s allies argue that the conflict of interest allegations are merely a diversion from the real clash unfolding within Trump’s transition — over the possibility that some ex-Trump officials will not be welcomed into a second Trump administration because of their association with Project 2025.
Lutnick makes no apologies for that, the person close to him said. He believes Trump himself has given a mandate not to hire such people, and Lutnick has called them “radioactive” in interviews in the past.
“Their problem is not with Lutnick, it is with DJT,” the person said.
Lutnick’s critics, however, argue that he took the mandate too far, sidelining people whose names appear in only some documents — people who did not play a major role in the Heritage-led effort. Some of them have taken their complaints to Trump, who has said he will ignore the transition team — he will ultimately decide who gets jobs in his own administration.
“Howard is way over his damn skis on this one,” the senior Republican official said.
Declan Harty contributed to this report.
