rbarris
Sean CastenIf you were under the impression that Trump & Witkoff’s abuse of presidential power with CZ Zhao I outlined yesterday was the only situation where the Trump family was violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause with a crypto criminal, we need to now move onto Justin Sun. Buckle up:
1. Sun created the Tron blockchain which, according to some estimates has housed the majority of the illicit (read: money laundering) crypto activity. https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/category-deep-dive-overall-2024-figures-and-declining-illicit-crypto-volume-on-tron
Category deep-dive: Overall 2024 figures and declining illicit crypto volume on TRON | TRM Blog
Crypto illicit activity on TRON dropped significantly in 2024 as overall crypto transaction volume surged 56% YoY. Explore key insights from the first chapter of TRM Labs' 2025 Crypto Crime Report, including the impact of enforcement actions, TRON’s role in reducing illicit volume, and future trends.
2. I have no idea how you calculate that number (because if you know where all the crime is, shouldn’t you be able to stop it?) But regardless, crypto is almost perfectly designed to do crime and if you don’t have an ethical leadership team it will. Ethics and Sun seem not to mix.
3. And in 2023, the SEC charged Sun with money laundering violations and “wash trades” whereby related parties create fraudulent trades of your product to artificially boost price and volume, then fleece the folks who try to get in on the action. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023-59
4. Then Trump wins the election and creates his crypto scam World Liberty Financial. Sun immediately announces that he has put $30M into their “governance tokens” which - under WLF terms - cannot be sold. AKA, this is a straight $30M transfer to the Trump family.
5. Sun would eventually put a total of $75M into WLF and then bought an additional ~$19M of Trump’s (totally worthless) $TRUMP memecoin so he could get a dinner date with our nation’s leading emolumenter. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/20/justin-sun-trump-dinner.html
6. To give more color on Tron, it appears that nearly 100% of the “wallets” (e.g., the computer accounts transferring money) on the Tron network are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and linked to a fentanyl trafficking network. https://cryptonews.com/news/investigator-alleges-drug-cartel-links-tron-ethereum-crypto-wallets/
7. In other words, the millions of dollars that Sun has transferred to the Trump family appears to be laundered from the CCP and drug traffickers. Judge a man by the company he keeps.
8. Sun was not the only shady character at that crypto dinner. But it was notable that he came to the US at all given his legal situation. To be welcomed at the White House sent a signal that bribes are the new laws. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/us/politics/trump-crypto-dinner-china-he-tianying.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Buyer With Ties to Chinese Communist Party Got V.I.P. Treatment at Trump Crypto Dinner
The warm welcome for a technology executive whose purchases of the president’s digital coin won him a White House tour illustrates inconsistencies in the administration’s views toward visitors from China.
9. Then in February, this really suspicious letter is sent to the judge overseeing the case that SEC filed in 2023 asking them to stay their case against Sun - signed by Sun’s lawyer AND THE SEC. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.596044/gov.uscourts.nysd.596044.82.0.pdf
10. The court obliged - because if your plaintiff and defendant both agree to a stay, you stay.. But it’s shady AF. And remember - this guy is a money launderer for the CCP and fentanyl traffickers! Two groups who the GOP supposedly have beef with. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.596044/gov.uscourts.nysd.596044.83.0.pdf
11. Now at this point in the story, if you’re Sun you might think “I just bribed the President of the United States and got away with a crime” and count your blessings. Or you might think “let’s see what else I can get”. Sun appears to have taken door 2.
12. Because he then announced plans to take Tron public on the NASDAQ - A US STOCK EXCHANGE - via a reverse merger where he bought a tiny, publicly traded toy company he could use as his shell to avoid the diligence that would be required by a a traditional IPO. https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/crypto-group-tron-to-go-public-in-u-s-via-reverse-merger-with-srm-entertainment-598cda51
13. SRM (the aforementioned toy company) used an investment banker you’ve never heard of named Dominari securities to broker the transaction. Presumably they got some fees out of the deal. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dominari-securities-serves-as-exclusive-placement-agent-to-srm-entertainment-on-a-100-million-equity-investment-302483642.html
14. The cynic in you might think “if there are fees to be had, I bet the Trumps are playing an angle on this”. And you’d be right. Because the board of directors for Dominari securities includes none other than Donny Jr. and Trump’s 5th favorite kid, Eric. https://www.dominariholdings.com/board-of-advisors
15. So now we’ve got CCP / fentanyl money that paid a nearly $90M bribe to Trump directly, then sent money to his ne’er do well kids to get out of jail and get access to US capital markets for a company that has no obvious value other than money laundering.
16. And once again - as with CZ and Binance - the fact that the GOP isn’t lifting a finger to investigate ANY of this is a criminal dereliction of duty. As for me, we’ve just sent a letter to the SEC with Senator Merkley demanding answers on this whole affair. https://casten.house.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_sec_on_justin_sun_september_2025.pdf
17. And in the meantime, if you have any information on this, or other crimes related to the Trump family’s crypto emoluments, please contact our office. Because we will have the gavels again soon - and there will be accountability. /fin
Paul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0