Unbelievable.
That’s the first word that came to mind when I saw President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he will host a dinner for the 220 top holders of the $TRUMP meme coin, complete with a private reception and White House tour for the top 25 investors.
Trump’s efforts to grift off the presidency are not new, and his first term was largely defined by corruption and self-dealing. My organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, tracked 3,700 conflicts of interest over the course of his four years in office. All of these conflicts stemmed from Trump’s failure to meaningfully divest from his business holdings.
Throughout those thousands of examples, I’m not sure we ever saw anything as blatant as this meme coin dinner.
But throughout those thousands of examples, I’m not sure we ever saw anything as blatant as this meme coin dinner. This is over the top — even for Trump — because while the practice of putting money in his pocket and subsequently gaining access to the presidency is far from new, it is more shameless than it has ever been. And even MAGA Republicans are beginning to take note. On Friday, Trump ally Sen. Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, for example, said the dinner “gives me pause.”
Let’s be explicit about what’s happening here: Trump appears to be auctioning off access to the presidency. The more of his cryptocurrency that people buy, the higher their chances of meeting Trump at his club. And there’s no ambiguity about who is profiting. Trump launched $TRUMP on Jan. 17, and Trump is able to personally profits in a few ways. As The New York Times reported:
A business entity linked to Mr. Trump owns a large tranche of the coins, meaning the president personally profits every time the price increases, at least on paper. Mr. Trump and his business partners also collect fees when the coins are traded, a windfall that amounted to nearly $100 million in the weeks after the coin debuted in January.
The public is clearly paying attention — after Trump made his reception announcement, the price of Trump’s coin surged more than 50%. That brings Trump more money. He may also stand to make an additional profit by holding the dinner at one of his golf clubs.
The buying process is also extremely opaque. At the end of the day, we don’t know everyone who is spending money at his properties, investing in Truth Social or buying up his crypto assets. (Neither the White House nor the company behind the meme coin responded to recent NBC News requests for comment.)
This raises glaring ethics concerns but, unfortunately, for the most part, our ethics laws outside of the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution don’t apply to the president. Those clauses bar the president from receiving profits, gains or advantages from foreign, state and federal governments. Unless a state, federal or foreign government purchased the $TRUMP coins, there’s very little we, or anyone, can do.
But because the buyers behind crypto transactions are generally not disclosed, foreign governments could in fact be buying these coins, meaning that Trump could be violating the Constitution without the public finding out. Individuals or special interests could also be buying the coins in the hopes of directly influencing presidential decisions that will affect all of us. Here, too, the public likely wouldn’t know.
This is unacceptable.
In 2019, the Trump administration announced its intention to hold the G-7 summit, a gathering of heads of state and government officials from seven major countries, at Trump’s Doral golf resort. This was met with widespread outrage, and just two days later, the administration reversed course. Similar outrage is appropriate, and needed, here.
A president is supposed to serve the public, not his own interests or the interests of a wealthy few. With this meme coin dinner, Trump is giving the highest bidders access to the president while lining his own pockets. These wealthy investors are getting a unique chance to potentially influence decisions that could affect regular Americans’ lives. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civil servants are losing their jobs thanks to his administration’s budget cuts, with a possible recession on the horizon as a result of Trump’s tariff policy.
This is disturbing corruption, and we cannot allow it to pass by as a new normal.
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