In brief
- House Democrats are seeking U.S. Treasury suspicious activity reports into President Trump’s crypto endeavors.
- They wish to investigate any potential misuses of political fundraising, foreign influence-seeking, and beyond.
- Specific mentions are made of World Liberty Financial and the TRUMP meme coin on Solana.
In a letter addressed to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday, three prominent House Democrats asked the Treasury to provide access to all suspicious activity reports, or SARs, on President Trump’s crypto endeavors like Ethereum decentralized finance platform World Liberty Financial and the official TRUMP meme coin.
The letter, penned by ranking member Representatives Gerald Connolly, Joseph Morelle, and Jamie Raskin, requested the information to investigate potential election fraud, corruption, and foreign influence-seeking, among other concerns.
“We write regarding the potential misuse of certain politically oriented fundraising ventures for fraudulent, corrupt, or other illegal purposes,” the letter reads, also identifying political action committees like Trump ally Elon Musk’s super PAC, America PAC.
The letter specifically calls out World Liberty Financial and the President’s official Solana meme coin as projects that have “raised myriad concerns about potential bribery, influence-peddling, threats to national security, market manipulation, and/or predatory and deceptive practices targeting vulnerable Americans.”
Highlighted in the section on Trump’s crypto endeavors, the longest section of the letter, is World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token sale, which initially fell short of its fundraising goal before being buoyed with millions of dollars in purchases from Tron founder Justin Sun.
Sun, who has been under the scrutiny of the SEC since 2023, recently earned a pause in that case as the regulator and his counsel seek a potential resolution to his case.
The letter also specifically mentions the TRUMP and MELANIA meme coins, the former which the President has personally promoted multiple times via social media.
“Because the identities of the coin purchasers need not be publicly disclosed, there is no way to tell who is buying the coin, potentially allowing bad actors, including authoritarian governments and companies they control, to enrich the Trump family,” it reads.
The request asks for all filed SARs as soon as possible, but no later than May 30, seeking information filed or related to transactions from January 1, 2023 to present. World Liberty Financial launched its token sale in October 2024, while the TRUMP meme coin was launched this January.
Scrutiny over Trump and his family’s personal connections to crypto have grown of late.
In late April, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) co-signed a letter requesting an ethics probe into the President’s upcoming gala dinner, which offered exclusive invitations for top holders of his Solana meme coin. Plus, earlier this month, House Democrats walked out of a hearing on digital assets because of the president’s coziness with crypto.
“Enriching himself and his family, coaxing investors by bringing them to the White House. It’s just too much,” House Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters (D-CA), told Decrypt at the time.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
