President Trump is set to host a private dinner Thursday night with the top investors in his meme coin, who spent millions of dollars to secure a spot at the exclusive event, fueling Democratic accusations of corruption.
More than 200 investors in $TRUMP will dine with the president at his golf club outside of Washington, D.C., in what Democratic lawmakers have alleged is a “pay-to-play scheme” effectively selling access to Trump.
“There is a big ‘For Sale’ sign on the White House lawn,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said at a press conference Thursday. “U.S. policy for sale.”
“Anyone who thinks those 220 people who are attending the dinner tonight who paid about $150 million for those seats just really craved to have a digital equivalent of a baseball trading card, well, you’re a little off the mark,” he continued. “They absolutely want to buy influence over U.S. policy.”
Trump launched his meme coin shortly before his inauguration. Meme coins are cryptocurrencies typically based on internet trends that have no inherent value, often making them highly volatile assets.
The token almost immediately drew scrutiny, prompting concerns that it could be used to buy influence with the president.
$TRUMP even received pushback from within the crypto industry, as some worried it could derail the president’s efforts to pass long-sought digital asset legislation.
However, the announcement of the dinner last month, which urged investors to load up on $TRUMP to secure one of 220 spots at the “intimate private dinner,” has sparked a new level of backlash.
“Donald Trump’s dinner is an orgy of corruption,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday. “That’s what this is all about. We are here today to talk about exactly one topic: corruption, corruption in its ugliest form.”
“Donald Trump is using the presidency of the United States to make himself richer through crypto, and he’s doing it right out there in plain sight,” she added. “He is signaling to anyone who wants to ask for a special favor and is willing to pay for it exactly how to do that.”
The White House has pushed backed on these allegations, arguing that Trump is attending the event in his personal time and abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws.
“The president has been asked about this, he has addressed this. I have also stated previously from this podium that the president is abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.
“And I think everybody, the American public, believes it is absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” she continued.
However, Democrats and ethics watchdogs have underscored concerns about the relatively anonymous nature of those buying up millions of dollars’ worth of Trump’s meme coin to secure a spot at the dinner.
“This dinner is different from a traditional donor fundraiser,” Eric Petry, who serves as counsel in the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, told The Hill.
“Typically, when a candidate is raising money for a campaign, all that money has to be reported, and it goes into the campaign finance system,” he said. “This situation is totally different.”
He noted that Trump is no longer a candidate, and it’s much more difficult to trace where these funds are coming from.
“It’s much, much harder to track and trace who these people are,” Petry said. “The money can come from foreign governments, foreign officials, from abroad, which raises a host of corruption concerns that we just really haven’t seen before.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and other Democratic lawmakers urged Trump to release a list of the attendees at Thursday night’s dinner.
“It provides cover for the most corrupt, for the most compromised, for the worst of the worst, to channel money to Donald Trump in order to get their private audience with him in order to plead their case for favorable treatment from the federal government or for investment from the U.S. taxpayer,” Murphy said.
Murphy also pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Tuesday hearing on the potential for Trump’s meme coin to be used as a tool of foreign influence.
“There is clearly a way around the State Department for foreign individuals of significant influence and wealth, to be able to directly lobby the president,” Murphy said.
“These are individuals who just bought their way into a meeting with the president. I think you should endeavor to get your hands on the list to make sure that there aren’t individuals there who are perhaps contravening national security interests that the Department of State is prioritizing.”
The top 220 investors in $TRUMP have bought nearly $394 million worth of the token since January, according to an analysis by blockchain analytics platform Nansen.
The wallet that sits atop the public leaderboard for the dinner, named “Sun,” has long been suspected to belong to Justin Sun, founder of the crypto platform Tron. He confirmed Tuesday that he is the top holder of $TRUMP.
“Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from @GetTrumpMemes to attend President Trump’s Gala Dinner as his TOP fan! As the top holder of $TRUMP, I’m excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry,” Sun wrote in a post on the social platform X.
Sun’s attendance at the dinner is notable given his history with U.S. regulators and his involvement with the Trump family’s crypto businesses.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Sun and his companies in 2023, accusing him of selling unregistered securities and fraudulently manipulating the price of his TRX token.
However, as the SEC has pulled back from numerous crypto lawsuits and investigations under Trump, the Tron founder has been among those to receive a reprieve. The SEC asked the court to put Sun’s fraud case on hold in February as it explored a potential resolution.
Sun has since become involved with World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture launched by Trump and his sons last fall. The company announced earlier this month that its new stablecoin, USD1, would integrate with the Tron ecosystem.
World Liberty Financial has also been at the center of a firestorm of corruption allegations.
The same day it unveiled the Tron integration, the company announced that USD1 would be used to complete a $2 billion transaction between an Emirati firm and Binance, a crypto exchange that has also come under scrutiny from U.S. regulators.
Like the meme coin, the stablecoin deal has fueled concerns that outside actors could use USD1 to attempt to buy influence with the president.
Trump’s growing crypto portfolio is complicating efforts to pass crypto legislation, which has become a key priority for the administration following the president’s embrace of the industry during his 2024 campaign.
A Senate bill to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins cleared an early hurdle on the floor Monday, bringing it one step closer to final passage after a failed attempt earlier last month.
However, several Democrats who voted to advance the bill have indicated that they are still uneasy about Trump’s ties to the crypto industry and are hoping to address these concerns in the floor amendment process.
Some have already filed amendments seeking to bar elected officials from holding stablecoins, meme coins and other digital assets. Lawmakers in both the Senate and House have also introduced separate legislation to a similar end.
Several Republicans have also appeared hesitant about Trump’s meme coin dinner.
“This is my president that we’re talking about, but I am willing to say that this gives me pause,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said, according to NBC News.
Others have brushed off concerns. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emphasized earlier this month, “Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open. They’re not trying to conceal anything.”
Murphy pushed back on this argument Thursday, contending that Trump’s moves can still be considered corruption.
“Just because the corruption is playing out in public where everybody can see it doesn’t mean that it isn’t rampant, rapacious corruption,” he said.
