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cryptocurrency
'This Dinner Is Corruption Embodied': Protest Planned as Trump Dines With Crypto Investors
"Offering special access to the president in exchange for a scheme that enriches the president borders on bribery."
May 22, 2025
Protesters are planning to gather outside U.S. President Donald Trump's Virginia golf club Thursday night as the Republican leader dines inside with the top 220 investors in his meme coin, an event that watchdogs and ethics experts have described as astonishingly corrupt.
The investors, including Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun and other moguls, spent nearly $400 million combined to obtain access to the president, who has openly solicited purchases of the crypto token $TRUMP. The top 25 investors in Trump's meme coin, most of whom are anonymous, are slated to receive a VIP White House tour on Friday.
Bitcoin, which Trump once derided as a "scam," surged to a new all-time high ahead of the dinner.
"This dinner is corruption embodied," progressive organizers said ahead of the protests. "Offering special access to the president in exchange for a scheme that enriches the president borders on bribery. America is not for sale!"
Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, said that "while millions of Americans brace for cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, Donald Trump is toasting the ultra-wealthy investors in his cryptocurrency."
"It's a crystal-clear picture of his priorities: tax handouts and exclusive access for the rich, and scraps for the rest of us," said Harvey. "Trump is selling access to the highest bidder, enriching himself at every turn, and accepting lavish gifts from foreign governments. He's turning the White House into his personal cash cow. Trump's message to the American people today couldn't be clearer: Let them eat cake."
"Never has there been a more shameless case of a U.S. president using their power and influence to line their own pockets."
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported Thursday that there will be no livestream of the dinner, and video gear will not be allowed.
In a social media post earlier this week, Sun—who was facing a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud case before the Trump administration halted it in February—wrote that he is "grateful for the invitation" to the dinner and "excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry."
Norm Eisen, co-founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Thursday that Trump "might as well put up a for sale sign on the White House lawn"—a sentiment that others echoed ahead of the dinner.
"We already know an accused Chinese billionaire fraudster is the #1 holder of $TRUMP coin," said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US. "If the Trump family refuses to be transparent about who all these top $TRUMP holders are, it raises serious questions about the hidden agendas at play that could cost the American people or threaten our national security."
"Never has there been a more shameless case of a U.S. president using their power and influence to line their own pockets," Carrk added. "While the president wines and dines wealthy insiders from around the world, American working people are pushed further back in line, bracing for higher costs under Trump's regressive tariffs and budget plan."
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16 Senate Dems Join GOP to Advance Crypto Bill—A Gift to Trump's 'Reeking Corruption'
"No Democrats should be supporting Trump's self-enrichment," said one grassroots progressive group.
May 20, 2025
Despite concerns that it does not address U.S. President Donald Trump's ties to the crypto industry, 16 Democrats in the Senate voted with most Republicans on Monday to advance a bill that creates a regulatory framework for stablecoins, digital assets whose value is tied to traditional currency, such as the U.S. dollar, or a commodity like gold.
The industry-backed Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act passed a cloture vote, with support from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the original co-sponsor of the bill, Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.). The bill is now teed up for Senate debate.
Back in February, a coalition of consumer groups and watchdogs warned that the bill would accelerate the "convergence of Big Tech and Big Finance" and is "a necessary prerequisite for future giveaways to the crypto industry."
In early May, the legislation faltered after several crypto-friendly Democrats raised concerns that it did not contain strong enough provisions around anti-money laundering, national security, and other issues.
Pro-crypto Democrats have said that the version of the bill that was considered on Monday contains a number of revisions that address those concerns, including more consumer protections and some limitations on Big Tech's ability to issue stablecoins.
However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs—said on the Senate floor Monday that the bill's "basic flaws remain unaddressed," according to prepared remarks.
Warren is concerned, in particular, that the bill does not "rein in the president's crypto corruption."
"Trump and his family have already pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars from his crypto ventures and they stand to make hundreds of millions more from his stablecoin, USD1, if this bill passes," Warren said. "Passing this bill means that we can expect more anonymous buyers, big companies, and foreign governments to use the president's stablecoin as both a shadowy bank account shielded from government oversight and as a way to pay off the president personally."
USD1 is a stablecoin developed by the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial. A few weeks ago, it was announced that USD1 would be used for a $2 billion deal between an investment firm established by the government of Abu Dhabi, MGX, and the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance.
Warren on Monday also expressed concern that the bill, even with revisions, creates a relatively weak regulatory framework, and still allows Big Tech to create private currencies, among other objections.
"Democrats correctly deride Republicans for abetting Trump's endless, daily, sulfurous corruption. But given the chance to stand up to his crypto grift—perhaps the most reeking corruption in presidential history—too many Democrats instead yielded to another depravity, namely unprecedented political spending by a handful of crypto corporations and billionaires," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert on Monday, referencing election spending by the crypto industry.
In the last election cycle, crypto industry-supported super political action committees gave money to multiple senators who voted for cloture on Monday, including Slotkin and Gallego.
"No Democrats should be supporting Trump's self-enrichment," the grassroots progressive group Indivisible wrote on Tuesday on Bluesky.
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Trump’s Qatari Plane Deal Is Naked Corruption
The gift is just the most visible part of a new ethos of self-dealing, with lines between public purpose and private enrichment not just blurred but erased.
May 17, 2025
Eight years ago, the lobby of the Trump International Hotel in Washington became the symbol of influence peddling. Tourists giddily mingled with lobbyists and campaign donors. The cheapest cocktail went for $24. How quaint.
This term, Donald Trump Jr. announced that he is opening a private, members-only club in Georgetown called Executive Branch. Members of the Trump administration, CEOs, and tech executives are among those who have signed up. The membership fee is currently $500,000.
That is the context for the controversy now erupting over Qatar’s gift of a roughly $400 million airplane for use as the new Air Force One, a 747 that would be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library when he leaves office, potentially making it available for his personal use (although he denies he would use it). It’s outlandish on its own terms. And it is just the most visible part of a new ethos of self-dealing, with lines between public purpose and private enrichment not just blurred but erased.
Out of today’s scandals come tomorrow’s reforms.
Days before his return to office, Trump launched his own cryptocurrency token, $TRUMP, which immediately enriched him by an estimated billions of dollars (although the coin’s worth has since dropped). Since crypto is a purely speculative vehicle, this gave “investors” a chance to send funds straight to Trump, without disclosure or pretense. Sure enough, the United Arab Emirates, another country where he visited this week, gave him... sorry, “invested” $2 billion.
Trump’s family enterprise already owns a crypto mining company, World Liberty Financial, which benefits from his shift from skeptic to deregulator.
Then there are the transactions that all seem to end up with the first family being paid—starting with the $28 million paid by Amazon to First Lady Melania Trump for a documentary.
Now, let’s not romanticize a past golden age of government ethics. The White House saw the Crédit Mobilier scandal of the 1870s and Teapot Dome in the 1920s. Lyndon Johnson used the Federal Communications Commission to give preferential treatment to radio stations he owned. In more recent decades, presidents of both parties conducted a grueling schedule of nearly nonstop campaign fundraising. (My old boss Bill Clinton certainly got grief when party donors slept in the Lincoln Bedroom.) Hunter Biden was accused of peddling influence for personal gain before his father pardoned him on the way out of office.
What’s different here is that the funds are flowing not to a political party or campaign but to the officeholder as an individual. The transaction is direct, naked.
The founders were very concerned about an individual using the power of the presidency to enrich themselves and their family members. They focused sharply on the risks of corruption and were well aware of the myriad ways the system could be abused. And they were especially worried that foreign governments could influence American presidents.
At the Constitutional Convention, Gouverneur Morris feared the possibility of the president receiving foreign bribes: “One would think the King of England well secured against bribery. Yet Charles II was bribed by Louis XIV.” The founders wrote anti-corruption protections into our Constitution.
Article I of the Constitution forbids any officeholder from accepting any gift or title from any “King, Prince, or foreign State” without congressional consent. It’s called the Foreign Emoluments Clause. At the Virginia ratifying convention for the Constitution, Edmund Randolph made clear how viscerally the framers recoiled from the possibility of foreign funds. He described “an accident, which actually happened, [which] operated in producing the restriction. A box was presented to our ambassador by the king of our allies. It was thought proper, in order to exclude corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any one in office from receiving or holding any emoluments from foreign states.”
Trump said, “I would be a stupid person” to turn down the $400 million plane. But remember that the Emoluments Clause is in the part of the Constitution making clear Congress’s power—it’s not up to the president to decide.
In his first term, Maryland and the District of Columbia sued, alleging that Trump illegally profited from foreign and domestic officials who visited his hotel. We agreed. That case got tied up in court, and in 2021, the Supreme Court ultimately dismissed it since Trump was no longer president.
So what lessons can we learn from this, and what ironclad rules could prevent future presidents from profiting so brazenly from office?
To start, Congress should make clear it does not approve of this massive foreign gift to our president. More comprehensively, Congress could pass legislation to fully enforce the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause and remove the procedural hurdles that derailed lawsuits in Trump’s first term.
Then it would be time to recognize that we have relied on common sense or self-restraint from previous chief executives. The Brennan Center’s task force of Republican and Democratic former senior officials recommended that presidents be required to put their businesses and assets into a blind trust, a proposal that is part of the Protecting Our Democracy Act that fell to a filibuster in 2022.
Even those protections may be inadequate. Neither the founders nor later generations of lawmakers profited from meme coins.
Out of today’s scandals come tomorrow’s reforms. For now, all of our astonished outrage is a good start.
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