President Donald Trump’s pick to lead a key Wall Street regulator is facing an “unusual” delay in his nomination — and people are starting to talk.
The president’s first pick to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brian Quintenz, has languished for months in the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The committee’s chair, Sen. John Boozman, told NOTUS on Wednesday that he hasn’t received updated guidance from the White House on moving forward with a vote. He called the delay “unusual.” The White House asked the committee in July to delay the vote after cryptocurrency moguls Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss reportedly pressured the president to reconsider Quintenz.
“There has been no change in the request made by the White House in July for the committee to delay the vote,” a Senate Agriculture Committee spokesperson told NOTUS.
The White House is considering other candidates, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
The delay also raised questions about how the regulator will function if its last remaining member jumps ship. A staggering four out of the five seats on the CFTC are vacant since Democratic Commissioner Kristin Johnson resigned earlier this month.
Trump has not yet nominated new commissioners to fill the vacancies on the CFTC, which is poised to play a greater role in oversight of the crypto industry.
During the first Trump administration, the Senate confirmed Quintenz as a CFTC commissioner in August 2017, a few months into the president’s first term. And Quintenz seemed like a shoo-in when Trump in February nominated him to be chair.
But after he appeared before the Senate Agriculture Committee in June, the committee twice cancelled a vote to advance him in July. The second cancellation came after the Winklevoss brothers, the billionaire co-founders of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, which went public last week, reportedly urged President Donald Trump to dump Quintenz, alleging he is not sufficiently aligned with the president’s agenda.
“His stated positions are not aligned with President Trump and the Administration’s stated goals,” Tyler Winklevoss told the New York Post in July.
Quintenz last week posted private messages on X he says Tyler Winklevoss sent him on July 24 and 25, days before Politico reported the Winklevoss brothers had urged the president to dump Quintenz, raising questions about their true motives for keeping him off the CFTC.
Quintenz said in his post that he believed the president had been “misled.” The screenshots seem to show Tyler Winklevoss soliciting the nominee’s thoughts on a complaint his company filed in June against the CFTC, which sued Gemini in 2022 for allegedly making false and misleading statements to the agency.
In January, just before Trump took office, Gemini paid $5 million to settle the suit. In a June complaint, Gemini attorney John Baughman accused CFTC attorneys of being “driven by a selfish desire to advance their careers by misusing their offices to obtain a high-profile ‘win’ against Gemini.”
“I’d like to understand your thoughts on this and how you plan to align with President Trump and the Administration’s mandate to end the lawfare and make amends for it,” Tyler Winklevoss texted Quintenz in July.
Winklevoss also said he would “be happy to raise the issue with the President” if Quintenz felt anyone was undermining his ability to do so. Quintenz committed to reviewing the matter if confirmed, but not before.
“I believe these texts make it clear what they were after from me, and what I refused to promise. It’s my understanding that after this exchange they contacted the President and asked that my confirmation be paused for reasons other than what is reflected in these texts,” Quintenz wrote in his post.
Quintenz, Tyler Winklevoss and Gemini did not respond to requests for comment. The White House declined to comment on the record.