Trump faces impeachment call and ethics probe over private dinner for TRUMP memecoin holders

trump-faces-impeachment-call-and-ethics-probe-over-private-dinner-for-trump-memecoin-holders

Trump faces impeachment call and ethics probe over private dinner for TRUMP memecoin holders

Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff has called for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, raising concerns over a planned private dinner for top Trump memecoin holders.

Speaking at a town hall near Atlanta on Friday, Ossoff said Trump’s decision to offer exclusive access to top investors in his personal cryptocurrency was a clear case of “selling access” to the presidency.

“I mean, I saw just 48 hours ago, he is granting audiences to people who buy his meme coin […] There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense,” the senator said.

Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia this year, has been a consistent critic of Trump’s conduct in office. He previously voted to convict Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial in 2021, though he was not yet in Congress for the first.

The latest controversy centres on an event announced last week, where the top 220 holders of Trump’s personal memecoin, TRUMP, are invited to a private dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C.

The gathering is scheduled for May 22 and also promises a VIP reception for the top 25 wallets. The Official Trump Memecoin website currently displays a leaderboard tracking eligible wallets.

Lawmakers and ethics experts have raised concerns that offering presidential access in exchange for cryptocurrency investments could violate federal ethics rules.

Separately, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have called for a formal ethics investigation, urging the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to review Trump’s involvement with the memecoin dinner event.

In a letter sent the same day, they warned that selling exclusive access to the president in connection with a personal financial asset could breach ethics laws, bribery statutes, and the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause.

“The American people deserve the unwavering assurance that access to the presidency is not being offered for sale to the highest bidder,” Warren and Schiff wrote, describing the situation as a “grave” threat to public trust.

As previously reported by crypto.news, TRUMP rallied over 70% after news broke that the president was offering a private dinner to top memecoin holders. In their letter, the senators said such actions raise concerns that the president “may be engaging in ‘pay to play’ corruption.”

“This new scheme is demonstrative of President Trump’s continued and concerning efforts to use his own name and likeness as President, as well as those of his family and the presidential office, for personal financial gain,” they added.

As of April 28, the TRUMP leaderboard shows that Tron founder Justin Sun holds the top spot after registering his HTX cold storage wallet for the exclusive dinner. According to blockchain data, Sun’s wallet currently holds around $18.91 million worth of TRUMP tokens.

Other top wallets include one linked to MemeCore, a project known for developing meme-focused crypto assets, listed as MeCo, and another registered under Wintermute, a major algorithmic trading firm, listed as CASE.

In related news, the team behind the Official Trump Memecoin recently denied rumours that investors need to hold at least $300,000 worth of TRUMP to qualify for the dinner event.

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