00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, Mr. Chairman, and welcome.
00:05Just to follow up on Mr. Pocant's last question, so in this hypothetical, this would be something that would be, if it were to be investigated, would be investigated by the Enforcement Division?
00:16This meaning?
00:18The insider training scenarios you guys just walked through.
00:20Yeah, and usually someone, you know, enforcement lawyers would identify something potential that they would pick up from a tip.
00:31We have a very robust tip line that comes in.
00:35We have whistleblowers, that, and all of that.
00:39Got a separate line for you, and this involves Justin's son, who had a case.
00:45The SEC brought charges against him in March of 2023.
00:50The charges were fraud and other securities law violations.
00:54The case moved forward and was continuing to move forward.
00:59President Trump was elected in November of 2024, and as you may know, the Trump family has begun meme coin investments of some kind.
01:10And the WLFI coin in particular, Mr. Sun bought $30 million in that coin on November 25, 2024.
01:19On January 17, 2025, Mr. Trump posts a tweet and launches the Trump coin.
01:26That's the dollar sign with Trump after it, all in quotes or caps.
01:31Then in January 19, Sun bought another $45 million of the WLFI coin.
01:38And just so we're clear, the WLFI piece is sort of, I guess, the umbrella group, and he's got these other meme coins underneath it, Trump, Melania, and the like.
01:50January 20th, which is Inauguration Day, after he's sworn in and after he does the parade, he then does a tweet, retweeting the January 17th post that launches the Trump coin.
02:03And on February 26th, the FEC filed a stay.
02:12It's a joint stay motion.
02:14It was joint between the plaintiffs and the defendants.
02:16But SEC joined in this to stay the cases against Mr. Sun's businesses.
02:22You assumed office after all of this happened, so that's April 21st.
02:26April 23rd, Mr. Trump announces a dinner for top investors in the Trump coin.
02:33And then WLF on May 1 announces a new coin, USDI1, which the Trump family also benefits from.
02:41And this is being used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for its $2 billion investment in crypto exchange with Binance.
02:48I'll skip ahead.
02:50I'm running out of time.
02:51May 20th, Mr. Sun tweets that he's the top holder in the Trump coin.
02:58So in the bidding process, he ends up coming out on top.
03:01And I guess it's this morning he announced this on Twitter.
03:05And then the dinner that they're going to have for the highest bidders is two days from now.
03:12So from my perspective, you know, these are concerning things.
03:17I didn't really get to the $320 million in trading fees that the Trump family has accrued since he launched these meme coins in January.
03:30Along the lines of what Mr. Pocan was asking, because this, frankly, to me, smells very bad.
03:38And my hope would be that the SEC would be investigating that piece.
03:44But it's especially problematic here because it's intertwined, apparently, at least chronologically with the decision that the SEC made jointly with the defendants to pause that civil case.
03:56So I was wondering if you could share any information with us about the status of that decision and where things are going from your perspective with respect to the SEC.
04:05Okay, well, thank you, Congressman.
04:08Well, first of all, I don't know anything about that case.
04:11So I can't speak to it.
04:13And obviously, it's an active case anyway.
04:16But as far as, you know, the more general proposition of these meme coins and whatnot, they are collectibles.
04:24Before I got to the SEC, the staff of Corporation Finance came out with guidance and basically saying that meme coins are collectibles and not securities.
04:38Well, two quick points.
04:40One is you've got a letter pending from Senator Warren and Representative Waters.
04:49This was sent to your predecessor, the acting chair, but it goes to these issues.
04:56And it's got information at request for you all to respond to that would address these issues.
05:02So if you're not aware of the issues, I hope you'll take a look and send a response.
05:07There's another letter that goes to the insider trading piece that Mr. Pocan was referencing.
05:13That's dated April 10th, and it goes directly to you.
05:16So I appreciate the chair, but I would ask that these letters be made part of the record,
05:22and we look forward to hearing from you in response to both of those letters.
05:25Yes, sir.
05:26Without objection, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop, for five minutes.
