Private event with crypto customers fuels accusations of Trump profiting off presidency

Geoff Bennett:

President Donald Trump last night hosted a gathering with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency business, sparking bipartisan concerns that he's selling access to the presidency for personal profit.

The dinner held at his Northern Virginia golf club was organized to boost sales of his cryptocurrency coin launched just days before the inauguration. The top 220 buyers of the meme coin were extended invitations. A guest at the dinner provided a video of the president to The New York Times.

Donald Trump, President of the United States: We have been pushing the market of crypto and Bitcoin and all of it every day. And I do it for a reason, not for me, for you, because I think it's the right thing to do.

Geoff Bennett:

The gathering featured hundreds of guests, including former NBA player Lamar Odom and Justin Sun, a well-known crypto investor who has reportedly spent more than $40 million on President Trump's meme coin.

Justin Sun, Crypto Entrepreneur:

It's really nice to be here today with everybody in the crypto to witness this great moment of crypto.

Geoff Bennett:

Sun was once under investigation by the SEC and DOJ for securities fraud. After Mr. Trump took office, the SEC probe was dropped.

Joining us now to discuss all this is Eric Lipton, who covers the intersection of the presidency and Mr. Trump's businesses for The New York Times.

Thanks for being with us.

So, Eric, to secure a seat for this dinner last night, attendees had to be among the top 220 holders of the Trump meme coin, which meant that they spent somewhere in the range of $2 million. How does this all work? And how is the president and his family, how are they profiting off of this?

Eric Lipton, The New York Times:

This is a very unusual situation. This is not a campaign contribution that's going to a political cause that supports a candidate. This is money that's going directly to Donald J. Trump, his sons, and his family, along with their business partners.

And so you have individuals here that, with his position as president, he's urging people to buy the cryptocurrency meme coin in exchange for getting access to him at a dinner and also visiting the White House. And, in fact, I was outside of the White House today while 25 of the VIPs, the big ones, biggest holders of his cryptocurrency. I watched them as they entered the White House, and then I was there as they exited as well.

So, I mean, this is what you pay to play. I mean, this is where the term comes from. You're paying to get access to and directly personally financially benefiting the president and his family. It's a very unusual situation in American history.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, the guest list was private, but tell us more about who was in the room, including the 25 people you just mentioned.

Eric Lipton:

The guest list was private, but actually we obtained a copy of the guest list, and we know who was at the dinner and we have identified many of them and communicated with many of them.

And they come from all over the world, but particularly from Asia, from China, from Singapore, from Korea. Many of them are major crypto players from Asia, and they are seeking in some cases to enter the United States marketplace. And they're seeking a regulatory blessing from the Trump administration to begin to seek profits here in the United States.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, let's talk more about the ethical concerns because there are two mainly. One is that Trump is profiting off the presidency by selling access and, to your point, that this type of event allows foreigners the opportunity to purchase access to the president, and the Constitution bans a president from receiving foreign gifts or money without congressional consent.

So walk us through the ethical questions here.

Eric Lipton:

That's right. As well, it would be an election law violation for him to take a campaign contribution from a foreign national. But foreign nationals can buy his cryptocurrency and give him money directly and his family. And that's what's happening here.

So, I mean, the president is exempt from the federal conflict of interest law. The president and vice president are the only two who are exempt. So, even though he's taking actions that benefit the crypto industry and then actions that indirectly benefit some of these individuals that are buying, like Justin Sun, with the SEC putting a pause on that investigation, he is not actually criminally liable for that conflict of interest, because he's exempt from that.

Additionally, the Supreme Court has ruled that any type of a notion of a bribe that, if it involves an official action by the president, then he is largely protected. So the president is doing what he wants. He asserts that he has no conflicts of interest, that these companies are run by his sons or his associates, and so, therefore, he doesn't have a conflict of interest.

But the bottom line, when we look at his financial disclosure report, we see that he personally financially benefits from the same corporate entities that are profiting from these cryptocurrency sales.

Geoff Bennett:

And the White House made the point yesterday, the White House press secretary said that President Trump was attending in his personal time, although in that video we saw the presidential seal on the lectern.

Another question here, though, are President Trump's business dealings influencing the administration's policymaking, especially when it comes to cryptocurrency?

Eric Lipton:

It's — the quid pro quo is really a hard thing to prove when you have an explicit action in exchange for a financial gain.

I mean, what you have sequentially is that there does appear to be a sequential relationship between people are investing literally billions of dollars in the Trump family-related cryptocurrency companies, and the president is pushing for actions by the federal government or taking the actions himself that benefit some of these same companies.

So these things are happening. They are factually occurring. But whether or not he is doing them explicitly in exchange for the financial benefits that he's getting is something that to some extent is really up to a prosecutor or a court to document. And we don't know for certain, but it does create an appearance of a conflict of interest.

And, at a minimum, it is very unusual. There really is nothing like this in American history. We have had other families of presidents that have been — have had various financial engagements from the oil industry to banking industry, to Hunter Biden, who was working as a consultant and selling paintings even.

But we have never had such an intense and far-reaching corporate engagement that personally benefits the president, as we're seeing right now with President Trump and his family.

Geoff Bennett:

Eric Lipton of The New York Times, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

Eric Lipton:

Thank you.