'Is This Not A Conflict Of Interest?: Tlaib Questions SEC Dropping Charges On Trump Crypto Investor

9 hours ago

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) spoke about the SEC dropping its investigation into Justin Sun who invested tens of millions of dollars into Trump's decentralized financial protocol, World Liberty Financial.

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Transcript

00:00for five minutes for questions.

00:01Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

00:03Can everybody on the panel, do you all agree

00:06that market manipulation is bad?

00:08Raise your hand if you agree market manipulation is bad.

00:11Oh, great.

00:11Okay. I want to get to conflict of interest.

00:13And Ms. House, I don't know if you know about this,

00:17but I want to talk about a billionaire crypto entrepreneur,

00:21Justin Sun.

00:22In March of 2023, the SEC charged Sun

00:26with market manipulation.

00:28Last year, Sun began investigating millions

00:30of dollars in, he started investing millions of dollars

00:34in the Trump family crypto business.

00:37They call it World Liberty Financial.

00:38Are you familiar with Trump's crypto business?

00:41Yes. Yes.

00:42So he starts putting money into that.

00:45And then in total, I think Sun's investment have put more

00:47than $50 million, not $1 million, not $2,

00:50$50 million in Trump's pocket.

00:53Then just last month, woof, SEC announced

00:58that it was dropping its charges against Sun.

01:00So Ms. House, how is this not a conflict of interest?

01:03Do you think those who are regulated by,

01:05in some cases investigated by,

01:08federal regulators should be able

01:09to invest ventures directly benefiting the President

01:13of the United States?

01:14On the second question on whether

01:16that they should be able to, and if that's conflict

01:18of interest, it definitely sounds like it

01:19and that there should be protections there.

01:21And I encourage those responsible

01:23from forcing them to look into it.

01:25And then on the first question about it, I would say,

01:28I would go back to my earlier comment that when we are

01:30in government, we hold a sacred duty to uphold public trust

01:33and that we need to make sure that we're held

01:36to a higher standard and we need to make sure that we uphold.

01:38Yeah, I mean, we have the emoluments clause.

01:39You would think that the President would have no idea

01:41that it's in the Constitution and that he's violating it.

01:44So then there's the meme coin.

01:46Just days before he's sworn in the President,

01:49he issues his own meme coin.

01:51While investors suffered more than two billion in losses,

01:54Trump and his partners made $100 million

01:58on trading fees alone.

02:00Now the SEC has declared that the meme coin

02:03is not subject to oversight.

02:06It's now dropping crypto cases

02:08and investigations left and right,

02:10even where, check this out,

02:12even where the CEO already pleaded guilty,

02:15they dropped the charges on them.

02:17So Trump and Musk have also gutted the CFPB,

02:20as you know, Ms. House, and the CFTC has announced

02:23that they're meeting directly with crypto CEOs

02:26to further reduce regulations of crypto.

02:29So Ms. House, yes or no, does the President Trump stand

02:32and benefit when none of the regulators are providing

02:34rigorous oversight of the crypto market?

02:38He benefits personally, right?

02:40It sounds like the financial interests may,

02:43although I will say that there have been instances

02:46where more regulation and clarity

02:48have benefited the market also.

02:50So the President of the United States has no oversight

02:52over this meme coin, all this investment right now, none.

02:57Does the fact that foreign nationals, Ms. House,

03:00have invested in Trump's meme coin

03:02and other crypto businesses

03:04have national security implications?

03:07Foreign nationals have invested in the meme coin.

03:12There's certainly, I think, sorry, I'm not an attorney,

03:17so I recognize that there's legal implications there,

03:20but I would say that there's definitely some hallmarks

03:22of concerns about influence and where it makes sense

03:24for those with the authority like those in this room

03:27to look into this in a bipartisan way.

03:30During the last election, the crypto industry

03:31spent over $130 million backing Trump and others.

03:35It took like that, it looks like that investment

03:38is paying off to me, I mean, $130 million.

03:42Last week, President Trump issued an executive order

03:45creating a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies.

03:49Ms. House, given that President Trump

03:51has a personal stake in the success

03:53and the perceived legitimacy of crypto industry,

03:56is this not a conflict of interest?

03:59I mean, he's in the industry

04:01and he just did an executive order.

04:04Roger, it definitely sounds like

04:08there may be conflicts of interest,

04:10I hope that the offices with the authority for oversight

04:13like Office of Government Ethics and Congress

04:14consider looking at that.

04:16I know, obviously, like I had a bank account

04:18and we still regulated banks, so there are other places,

04:20but ultimately for an industry that is highly speculative,

04:23there's a lot of questions, there's a lot of questions.

04:26Ms. House, given that interest of the president

04:28in the crypto industry are so closely aligned,

04:32how can investors trust that their interests

04:35are prioritized by financial regulators?

04:39I think the trust there needs to demonstrate,

04:41that regulators need to demonstrate dispassionate,

04:44putting in place of the guardrails that will protect them,

04:47that will protect consumers

04:48and that are going to benefit the American public

04:50and not appear to serve only public officials

04:54or those who are in, I think that,

04:55I think that there's a great opportunity here

04:57with stablecoin regulation to do both.

04:59Thank you, IU.

'Is This Not A Conflict Of Interest?: Tlaib Questions SEC Dropping Charges On Trump Crypto Investor

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