00:00for five minutes for questions.
00:01Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
00:03Can everybody on the panel, do you all agree
00:06that market manipulation is bad?
00:08Raise your hand if you agree market manipulation is bad.
00:11Oh, great.
00:11Okay. I want to get to conflict of interest.
00:13And Ms. House, I don't know if you know about this,
00:17but I want to talk about a billionaire crypto entrepreneur,
00:21Justin Sun.
00:22In March of 2023, the SEC charged Sun
00:26with market manipulation.
00:28Last year, Sun began investigating millions
00:30of dollars in, he started investing millions of dollars
00:34in the Trump family crypto business.
00:37They call it World Liberty Financial.
00:38Are you familiar with Trump's crypto business?
00:41Yes. Yes.
00:42So he starts putting money into that.
00:45And then in total, I think Sun's investment have put more
00:47than $50 million, not $1 million, not $2,
00:50$50 million in Trump's pocket.
00:53Then just last month, woof, SEC announced
00:58that it was dropping its charges against Sun.
01:00So Ms. House, how is this not a conflict of interest?
01:03Do you think those who are regulated by,
01:05in some cases investigated by,
01:08federal regulators should be able
01:09to invest ventures directly benefiting the President
01:13of the United States?
01:14On the second question on whether
01:16that they should be able to, and if that's conflict
01:18of interest, it definitely sounds like it
01:19and that there should be protections there.
01:21And I encourage those responsible
01:23from forcing them to look into it.
01:25And then on the first question about it, I would say,
01:28I would go back to my earlier comment that when we are
01:30in government, we hold a sacred duty to uphold public trust
01:33and that we need to make sure that we're held
01:36to a higher standard and we need to make sure that we uphold.
01:38Yeah, I mean, we have the emoluments clause.
01:39You would think that the President would have no idea
01:41that it's in the Constitution and that he's violating it.
01:44So then there's the meme coin.
01:46Just days before he's sworn in the President,
01:49he issues his own meme coin.
01:51While investors suffered more than two billion in losses,
01:54Trump and his partners made $100 million
01:58on trading fees alone.
02:00Now the SEC has declared that the meme coin
02:03is not subject to oversight.
02:06It's now dropping crypto cases
02:08and investigations left and right,
02:10even where, check this out,
02:12even where the CEO already pleaded guilty,
02:15they dropped the charges on them.
02:17So Trump and Musk have also gutted the CFPB,
02:20as you know, Ms. House, and the CFTC has announced
02:23that they're meeting directly with crypto CEOs
02:26to further reduce regulations of crypto.
02:29So Ms. House, yes or no, does the President Trump stand
02:32and benefit when none of the regulators are providing
02:34rigorous oversight of the crypto market?
02:38He benefits personally, right?
02:40It sounds like the financial interests may,
02:43although I will say that there have been instances
02:46where more regulation and clarity
02:48have benefited the market also.
02:50So the President of the United States has no oversight
02:52over this meme coin, all this investment right now, none.
02:57Does the fact that foreign nationals, Ms. House,
03:00have invested in Trump's meme coin
03:02and other crypto businesses
03:04have national security implications?
03:07Foreign nationals have invested in the meme coin.
03:12There's certainly, I think, sorry, I'm not an attorney,
03:17so I recognize that there's legal implications there,
03:20but I would say that there's definitely some hallmarks
03:22of concerns about influence and where it makes sense
03:24for those with the authority like those in this room
03:27to look into this in a bipartisan way.
03:30During the last election, the crypto industry
03:31spent over $130 million backing Trump and others.
03:35It took like that, it looks like that investment
03:38is paying off to me, I mean, $130 million.
03:42Last week, President Trump issued an executive order
03:45creating a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies.
03:49Ms. House, given that President Trump
03:51has a personal stake in the success
03:53and the perceived legitimacy of crypto industry,
03:56is this not a conflict of interest?
03:59I mean, he's in the industry
04:01and he just did an executive order.
04:04Roger, it definitely sounds like
04:08there may be conflicts of interest,
04:10I hope that the offices with the authority for oversight
04:13like Office of Government Ethics and Congress
04:14consider looking at that.
04:16I know, obviously, like I had a bank account
04:18and we still regulated banks, so there are other places,
04:20but ultimately for an industry that is highly speculative,
04:23there's a lot of questions, there's a lot of questions.
04:26Ms. House, given that interest of the president
04:28in the crypto industry are so closely aligned,
04:32how can investors trust that their interests
04:35are prioritized by financial regulators?
04:39I think the trust there needs to demonstrate,
04:41that regulators need to demonstrate dispassionate,
04:44putting in place of the guardrails that will protect them,
04:47that will protect consumers
04:48and that are going to benefit the American public
04:50and not appear to serve only public officials
04:54or those who are in, I think that,
04:55I think that there's a great opportunity here
04:57with stablecoin regulation to do both.
04:59Thank you, IU.
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