Here he is again, larger than life, The President of the United States—who, apparently, has plucked the last plum of his glory and tossed it into crypto. Prize for the faithful! The top holders of his TRUMP meme coin are whispered sweet promises: an exclusive supper with the hulking master himself or a privileged promenade through the haunted halls of the White House. Never before have dollar signs, digital or otherwise, so comfortably taken tea with power—rolling their eyes at the Constitution from the plush red carpets.
When BeInCrypto dared the darkness for a morsel of legal insight, Richard Painter—the ex-shoemaker of ethics for Bush—sighed and pronounced: “Not illegal, no. Not yet. But if The Donald fumbles his gala by May, he may find the wolves of fraud at his heel—howling for payment in the currency of humiliation.”
The Trumpian Announcement: From Tweets to Tarts
If you believed ethics were already on life support, Trump’s crypto foray yanked out the tubes and started selling hospital gowns. Now it’s not just a question of ‘should he’—it’s ‘can he’? He can. He does.
Not a week ago, His Excellency issued a contest. The top 220 TRUMP holders would sip soup with the President—white napkins, red faces—and the top 25, in perhaps the most American twist, would traipse through the White House itself, VIP style.
The mighty public, for once, has a deadline: May 12. Accumulate the coin, outmuscle your neighbors, and win access to the heart of government. Dinner will be May 22, at which point, one assumes, dessert will be laced with both sugar and subpoenas. Critics, unsurprisingly, gnawed on the ethics of the offer—somewhere between bribery and Monopoly.
A recent report—signed in blood or ink by Painter himself—says Trump’s crypto stashes (TRUMP and WLFI, for the acronym-inclined) clock in at a brisk $2.9 billion, about a third of his treasure chest. The coming of the USD1 stablecoin is said to be the wind beneath these digital wings.
So, yes, you may call it tasteless. But law is not entirely a question of taste.
How to Dance Around the Emoluments Clause with Gold Shoes
The great engine of officialdom—I mean, the Senate Banking Committee—has grumbled, but to no effect. Yes, there’s plenty of talk about tainted trust, but the legal line, apparently, runs on a different track.
The Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses were hammered in to keep foreign and domestic bribes from spoon-feeding our leaders. “Keep government pure,” they said, before nodding off into slumber. Alas: the clauses only truly bark when gifts come from foreign dignitaries or the federal treasury itself.
“[Trump’s] using the presidency to make money for himself off his meme coin and auctioning off White House tours and a dinner with the President in his official capacity. If foreign governments get involved, that would violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution. I haven’t seen that yet, but they could. But it’s clearly corrupt,” Painter told BeInCrypto.
In summation: unless the Sultan of Memeistan buys in, legal anchors are not dropped. Morality, however, has left port without a captain.
Still, launching a meme coin from the highest hill in Washington has opened loopholes you could drive a gold-plated limousine through!
BREAKING: Trump just announced that the top 220 holders of his $TRUMP Meme Coin will be invited to dinner with him on May 22nd.
Let that sink in: Trump, his family, and his businesses control the coin, so he’s essentially telling people to pump his asset if they want a seat at…
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) April 23, 2025
Conflicts of Interest: Rules for Thee, Not for Me
A weathered volume of the U.S. Code shouts—no federal employee may enrich himself with personal stakes in government decisions. Penalties? Jail, fines, and the curse of C-SPAN reruns.
But as in a Dostoevskian joke, there’s an exception: “Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Congressfolk: do as you will, the law is but a friendly suggestion.”
“The financial conflict of interest statute does not apply to the President, the Vice President, and members of Congress. It’s a crime for everybody else in the government. That’s why the members of Congress are trading in stocks, and President Trump can do this. This is a big problem, and I think we may need to amend that criminal statute,” Painter explained.
This legal free pass hails from the earliest birth-cries of the Republic. While ethics professors write angry blog posts, the mighty wheel keeps spinning.
Trump’s high-roller dinner plans? Not a federal case—unless, of course, he forgets to serve dessert. In that case, angry lawsuits might be the main course, from citizens or state attorneys unsated by broken promises.
President Trump is selling a meme coin and making a nice profit from a contest offering big buyers a chance to have dinner with him — but that doesn’t mean the White House is for sale … at least according to Michael Knowles.
FULL STORY: @TMZLive
— TMZ (@TMZ) April 30, 2025
Meme Coins: Freedom, Froth, and SEC Shrugs
After a single month of presidential meme coin glory, the SEC, ever stern and mysterious, declared: these coins are not securities. Not their circus, not their monkeys.
Thus, if you are one of the brave souls who invested in TRUMP, and your digital purse grows light, do not come complaining of securities fraud. The law prefers to sip its tea elsewhere.
Yet, a glimmer of hope remains for the litigious: if Trump skips out on dinner, you can sue for plain old, honest fraud, the kind recognized by your grandmother’s lawyer.
Common Law Fraud: A Classic Recipe
No need to memorize the Securities Exchange Act for this one. Common law fraud is simple, bitter medicine. Here’s how it bakes: a falsehood, known to be false by its teller; an intention to trick; a mark who believes in the trick; an action, and, finally, a loss.
If The Don fails to set the table, those wounded by hunger—or pride—can sue. Should the carnage be enormous, state attorney generals may swoop in like crows to a feast.
“If there is any material misrepresentation made or a lie being told by anyone in the sale of a meme coin, there could be a private right of action for fraud and the state attorney general could move in on that and file an enforcement action. I do not know that there’s enough evidence to bring a fraud claim, but this is starting to move in that direction,” Painter told BeInCrypto.
So: keep your suits pressed and your subpoenas handy—just in case dinner gets canceled.
The Specter of Manipulation—and the Wheel of Fortune
Those with a taste for drama must have licked their lips at the timing. Days before the contest was revealed, $300 million in new meme tokens were “unlocked”—an act not unlike watering down the vodka at a party. Prices dive, pessimists bet on doom, and then—voila—the President himself lifts the curtain. Prices soar 50%. The connoisseurs of short-selling are left only with regret… and a need for better timing.
The trained eye could not fail to see the shadow of manipulation—market games fit for czars and street hustlers alike.
Painter points, none too gently, toward the open grave of future regulation, muttering that we’d best fill it before the fall comes.
Regulation: An Afterthought
With meme coins off the SEC’s dance card, and the titans of government immune to lesser laws, Painter’s warning stands poignant and chilly: without oversight, disaster lurks. The stew tastes of risk, instability, and unpaid dinner invitations.
“Crypto is unregulated, it’s speculative. The assets are extremely volatile, and we could have a financial crisis coming out of crypto if we don’t get a handle on this. And what I see is the President, members of his cabinet, members of Congress trading in crypto, making money off crypto, and taking campaign contributions from the crypto industry instead of regulating it,” Painter said.
The house always wins, but when the house is the government, well—who foots the bill?
“For five or six years, I’ve urged Congress to act and to add crypto to the definition of a security. I think it’s really destroys the credibility of our government and undermines public confidence. This is not going to end well. The issue is how dangerous this could be for the economy if we don’t regulate this, and [instead] we just hear more and more speculation. This is a big problem and it can have a systemic effect in the financial system,” Painter concluded.
At present, no judge has ordered Trump to wash the dirty dishes of ethics—yet his crypto feast has left many with indigestion. The question is not only whether he will serve the promised dinner or trashed invitations, but whether an unregulated dining hall can avoid the rats for long.
For now, the curtain falls. But the play—hilarious, tragic, and as American as steak served cold—goes ever on.
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2025-05-01 21:45