House Democrats registered a protest against President Donald Trump’s “corruption” at a hearing on digital assets on May 6.
The members were supposed to hold discussions in order to build bipartisan support for legislations on stablecoin and crypto market structure at the ‘American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets’ hearing.
However, the Democrats chose to voice their criticism of the president’ crypto ventures during the hearing.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA-43) said that Trump’s first 100 days were filled with failures, chaos, and incompetence. Trump is using his crypto ventures to create an avenue to enrich himself and his inner circle.
“I am deeply concerned that Republicans aren’t just ignoring Trump’s corruption, they are legitimizing Trump and his family’s efforts to enrich themselves on the backs of average Americans,” Waters said.
Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Timothy Massad asked that Trump and vice president J. D. Vance should be prohibited from being involved in any crypto-related business.
In fact, the CFTC should work along with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create a joint self regulatory organization to regulate crypto assets, Massad said.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA-08) claimed that we are going to see a major crypto disaster in which people are going to lose a lot of money. “President Trump’s crypto dealings are estimated to be a total of $2.9 billion and nearly 40% of his total wealth,” Lynch added.
Chastity Murphy, senior advisor for financial institutions at the Treasury Department, said Trump’s crypto empire is a vehicle for “influence peddling, bribery, and regulatory capture.”
The Democrats are attempting to have the language in the bills mention that the president refrains from crypto businesses while in office.
Trump’s crypto ventures such as the TRUMP and MELANIA meme coins, the upcoming VIP dinner, the World Liberty Financial project, and the USD1 stablecoin have drawn repeated criticism from the Democrats.