#Trump gathered Thurs evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal #cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the #crypto industry from the White House as #protesters outside condemned the event as a historic #corruption of the presidency.
#law #Constitution #emoluments
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/trump-memecoin-dinner.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=97C0029A-D969-4B45-AB53-A78E561AA74C
The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where #Trump flew from the WH on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the US from overseas.
At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”
It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump [no other president has ever so corrupt]. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews w/NYT, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing #Trump & US #financial #regulations.
“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Trump told the dinner guests, referring to [always obsessing over] the #Biden admin’s enforcement actions against #crypto companies.
The gala attendees made whooping noises while #Trump spoke, & applauded as he declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to NYT by a dinner guest.
Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in #crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
The start of #Trump’s 2nd term has been punctuated w/more than a dozen of these lucrative transactions for his family & partners: #RealEstate deals from #Qatar to #Serbia that involve #ForeignGovernments, a new banklike #crypto venture that has pulled in $2B from the govt of the #UAE, a golf tournament at his Miami club sponsored by a #Saudi-funded venture. Trump is estimated to have added billions to his personal fortune, …since the start of his new term, much of it through crypto.
But none of these profit-seeking pitches has been more explicit than the #memecoin dinner. The event was unlike anything in American history — not a campaign fund-raiser but a gathering arranged by #Trump’s business partners to directly enrich the first family.
As guests were flowing into the club, protesters held signs with slogans like “Stop Crypto Corruption,” “Release the guest list” & “No Kings.”
“This is the crypto corruption club,” Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) yelled at the entrance to #Trump’s golf course, speaking so loudly that he had to stop after he lost his voice.
“This is like the Mount Everest of #corruption,” Merkley said.
At a *news* conference on Thurs, WH propagandist, Karoline Leavitt, rejected any suggestion that Trump was acting inappropriately by hosting the dinner.
“It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” Leavitt said before #Trump headed to the club. “This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.”🤣
Outside the club, men in tuxedos began gathering by a sign-in table at 5PM, collecting wristbands & raffle tickets as they made their way inside to escape the rain. Many of the guests flashed foreign passports as ID.
The dinner menu featured filet mignon and pan-seared halibut, as well as a “Trump organic field green salad.” #Trump spoke from a lectern adorned with the #PresidentialSeal & with American flags arrayed behind him.
Perhaps the best known #crypto investor at the dinner was #JustinSun, a Chinese #billionaire who runs the crypto platform #Tron. He spent more than $40 million on $TRUMP coins, earning himself the top spot on the leaderboard.
Wearing a black bow tie & accompanied by an assistant who held an umbrella over his head, #JustinSun was among the first guests to arrive. In a brief interview at the club, he told NYT that the dinner would be his first meeting w/ #Trump.
“I’m very excited to meet him & discuss about #crypto’s future,” Sun said.
#SangrokOh, a Korean #crypto exec, arrived at the dinner with a collection of red baseball caps emblazoned with the words “Make Crypto Great Again” that he planned to hand out at the event. He said he had flown all the way from Seoul to attend the dinner.
“It’s kind of a fund-raiser” for #Trump, Oh said in an interview at his hotel in Virginia. “And he’ll always be good to his sponsors.”
Others guests included #VincentLiu, the chief investment officer at #KronosResearch, a #crypto firm founded in Taiwan. #Kronos profits by conducting high-frequency trading on crypto platforms across the world — except in the US.
But with a nod from #Trump & his *#regulators*, Liu wants to enter the US market. His firm bought enough of the $TRUMP coins to ensure he had a seat at the dinner—with the hope he might get Trump’s ear.
Most guests have a direct stake in how #cryptocurrencies are #regulated in the #US. They viewed the dinner as an opportunity to hear directly from #Trump & gain insight into how they might expand operations in the US post #Biden #regulations….
Among other guests…were #SuKyungNa, who is COO at #Hyperithm, a digital asset management company based in Tokyo & Seoul, & Yan Liberman, a co-founder of #DelphiDigital, a Miami Beach firm that offers market intelligence for #crypto investors.
The former NBA star #LamarOdom — now promoting his own #memecoin, $ODOM — posted on social media that he would be attending the event, & appeared in guests’ photos from inside #Trump’s club.
The dinner list also included #NicholasPinto, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Cranford, NJ, who first became rich by selling scooter wheels when he was 13 & has since branched out to build a sprawling moneymaking social media presence & invest in #crypto.
Nonilex