Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has pushed back against claims that the company’s stablecoins have helped facilitate financial activity in Iran, arguing that its efforts to identify suspicious transactions and enforce sanctions have produced meaningful results.

The dispute follows a report published last month by Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report accused Tether of providing “a significant financial lifeline within Iran’s shadow banking network.” Ardoino said Monday that the investigation failed to acknowledge the company’s work to monitor transactions and restrict activity linked to sanctioned entities.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, the subcommittee’s leading Democrat, spearheaded the inquiry amid broader concerns among lawmakers about cryptocurrency being used for illicit financial activity. Ardoino countered that Tether often freezes suspicious wallets before they are formally designated by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF).

In a post on X, Ardoino said Tether had frozen addresses an average of four weeks before OFAC and NBCTF officially sanctioned them since 2023. He also claimed that Tether acted before Chainalysis labeled the addresses in 99% of cases.

Ardoino further argued that the company’s enforcement efforts had helped bring Iran-related stablecoin transaction volumes down by 94%.

He reiterated his position during a remote appearance at Washington’s DC Fintech Week last Tuesday, criticizing the decision to release the Senate report to the media before Tether could review it. Ardoino said the public should have an opportunity to hear the company’s explanation as well.

“I believe it’s important for the public also to hear our side of the story,” he said.

Ardoino described Tether’s objective as removing bad actors from the USDT ecosystem. However, he cautioned that restricting their access to USDT could push them toward alternative financial channels that are beyond the control of both Tether and U.S. authorities.

“Our aim is to push out the bad actors from USDT,” he said, noting that these groups were shifting toward methods outside their oversight.

Although he acknowledged that the work is far from complete, Ardoino expressed confidence in the company’s approach to combating illicit finance.

“I wake up in the morning and I look at myself in the mirror, and I know that we’re doing the right thing,” he said.

The Senate investigation examined several years of activity, focusing in part on the period before 2024, when lawmakers said Tether had not consistently frozen flagged wallets. The report argued that the lack of comprehensive action created opportunities for misuse, claiming that terrorist organizations such as Hamas moved away from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to promote USDT for transactions.

Since the report was released, Blumenthal has also examined Tether’s relationship with Cantor Fitzgerald, its U.S. financial partner, which has close ties to President Donald Trump’s administration. Last fall, Tether appointed Bo Hines, Trump’s former White House crypto adviser, to lead its U.S. division.

The political landscape could also influence future oversight. Prediction market Kalshi has recently indicated rising odds that Democrats, including Blumenthal, could regain a Senate majority. Such a change could expand the senator’s investigative powers and lead to greater congressional scrutiny of cryptocurrency businesses.