Referencing Trump’s business moves while in office, an ethics expert said, ‘His is one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency I’ve ever seen.’
President Trump’s crypto controversy clash
House Democrats walked out of a cryptocurrency legislation hearing and moved down the hall for their own “shadow hearing” in hopes to put the focus on President Trump’s close ties to the crypto industry. They claim he’s engaged in massive corruption.
Fox – 4 News
President Donald Trump has attended plenty of black tie dinners with the wealthy, but his latest soiree stands out among the annals of presidential dining as he boosts the growing crypto industry, profits from it and invites a torrent of criticism about the ethical implications.
Trump will depart the White House on May 22 and head to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, to dine with 220 investors who plowed a combined $394 million into his crypto venture, according to media reports. The dinner with the president is their reward for making the leaderboard in a contest to be among the top purchasers of the $TRUMP meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency.
A crypto-friendly president who repeatedly has faced ethical questions is diving into both with the dinner. It comes just a day after the Trump administration accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar in a deal that raised concerns about the foreign nation trying to curry influence with the president.
Democrats and ethics experts are staging a protest before the dinner, which they say provides a way for the wealthy to influence the president by funneling money to his business. An affiliate of The Trump Organization and the company Fight Fight Fight LLC own 80% of the meme coins, according to the cryptocurrency’s website.
Among those protesting is Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, who wrote on social media that the dinner is “a stunning public display of corruption: The White House and President Trump are selling access to the government for personal profit.”
Crypto analysis firm Chainalysis found that Trump and business entities connected to him made more than $1.3 million in trading fees in the days after the dinner was announced, Chainalysis spokesman Jorah Huntington told USA TODAY earlier this month.
“This is one of the most blatant and appalling instances of selling access to the presidency I’ve ever seen,” said Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump “is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself.”
“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” Kelly added.
Chinese billionaire attending dinner
The list of dinner guests is not public. However, one of those attending is Chinese-born crypto mogul Justin Sun, who announced his plans on social media.
“As the top holder of $TRUMP, I’m excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry,” Sun said, who is worth $8.5 billion, according to Forbes.
Trump once criticized the crypto industry but has since become a huge booster and investor. He promoted cryptocurrencies on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Nashville in July for the Bitcoin Conference that he wanted to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet and bitcoin superpower of the world.” He has promised favorable regulation of the industry, which supported his campaign.
The president held a crypto summit in the White House with prominent figures in the industry and signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile. The administration dismantled a Justice Department unit targeting crypto fraud.
Trump’s financial stake in the industry has raised ethical concerns, though. He launched a pair of cryptocurrency tokens and owns 60% of the crypto platform World Liberty Financial.
Trump’s big crypto revenues
Two of the cryptocurrency investments owned by Trump-affiliated entities alone have made at least $300 million in trading fees on sales of his meme coin and other digital currency since January, according to ethics watchdogs, Democratic lawmakers, crypto analysts and other experts.
Greater potential profits lie in the Trump entities’ stake in the value of the meme coin and their other Trump-themed crypto investments, these analysts and other experts say.
Recently, World Liberty Financial announced that one of its digital coins is being used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for a $2 billion investment in cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Democratic lawmakers and crypto analysts said the deal was a conflict of interest that could earn World Liberty at least $27 million annually.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, who has been at the forefront in bringing attention to the issue, opened a preliminary investigation into Trump’s crypto businesses this month.
“President Trump’s financial entanglements to the $TRUMP coin, as well as the attempted use of the White House to host competitions to prop up the value of $TRUMP, represents an unprecedented, pay-to-play scheme to provide access to the Presidency to the highest bidder,” Blumenthal said in a press release announcing the inquiry.
Contributing: Josh Meyer