House of Representatives says Trump’s crypto projects threaten national security

What’s new? Democrat Gerald Connolly, a member of the US House of Representatives from Virginia, has called on the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate whether Donald Trump’s crypto projects conflict with his presidential duties. In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Republican James Comer, he noted that Trump may have already profited from his DeFi platform World Liberty Financial and meme token TRUMP, which violates ethical standards and poses national security risks.

Connolly’s appeal

What else is known? World Liberty Financial is of particular concern to Connolly because its largest investor is TRON blockchain founder and head of the HTX and Poloniex exchanges Justin Sun, whom the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has previously accused of securities fraud.

Such financial ties raise “serious national security concerns” about the possibility of foreign influence on US policy, the congressman added.

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Sun invested $75 million in World Liberty Financial by purchasing WLFI native tokens, which Connolly said helped the project pass a self-imposed revenue threshold and allowed it to transfer cash directly to Trump.

“Allowing such practices to persist unchecked would signal to the American people that the Oversight Committee is unwilling or unable to enforce the standards it claims to uphold,” Connolly said.

He added that without the committee’s intervention, Trump is unlikely to comply with “a single provision” of the Presidential Ethics Reform Act. That law requires financial disclosure and conflict of interest checks, among other things.

“If these reforms are to mean anything, they must be applied universally,” the official concluded.

Trump’s team launched the TRUMP meme token two days before the inauguration, a move that prompted ethics experts to express concern that the politician was trying to capitalize on his presidency.

At a January 21 press conference, Trump admitted that he knew little about the launch of the TRUMP token: “I don’t know much about it other than I launched it, other than it was very successful.”