Press Releases

Washington, D.C. (May 29, 2025)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to President Donald Trump demanding he release the guest list of invitees to his gala dinner honoring top buyers of the $TRUMP memecoin who purchased access to the President. Analyses indicate that a majority of the buyers are likely foreign nationals who would have been barred from donating to Trump’s campaign.   

“I write today to demand that you release the names of all the attendees at this dinner and provide information about the source of the money they each used to buy $TRUMP coins, so that we can prevent illegal foreign government emoluments from being pocketed without congressional consent. Publication of this list will also let the American people know who is putting tens of millions of dollars into our President’s pocket so we can start to figure out what—beyond virtually worthless memecoins—they are getting in exchange for all this money,” wrote Ranking Member Raskin.

Shortly before his inauguration, President Trump launched his $TRUMP cryptocurrency memecoin—a type of “joke cryptocurrency” that has no underlying value. The coin surged in the lead-up to the inauguration to a peak of $14.5 billion in market value, before collapsingand losing 90% of its value. After Trump’s memecoin plummeted, his website announced that the top 220 holders of the token would be invited to an “intimate private dinner” with the President at his golf club outside Washington, D.C. After the announcement, $TRUMP surgedmore than 50 percent.

The Trump Organization controls 80% of the entire share of $TRUMP coins and stands to profit from not just millions of dollars in trading fees but hundreds of millions in direct profit.

The identities of coin buyers are not public or easily traceable. Analyses of the $TRUMP leaderboard indicate that a majority of the attendees—roughly 73 percent—appear to be foreign nationals who purchased the coin through offshore cryptocurrency exchanges that prohibit U.S. customers. Moreover, many of Trump’s dinner guests—45 of the 220 invitees—hold crypto assets with blatantly racist and antisemitic names.

Among the top 25 “VIP” guests who are offered additional private access to the president, including a “VIP White House tour,” 23 out of 25 are likely foreign individuals or entities. A majority of those on the invite list had never purchased a $TRUMP token prior to the announcement about a dinner, suggesting that the buyers were primarily drawn by the promise of access to Trump. 

One of the dinner’s known attendees is Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last year for fraud. After Mr. Sun purchased $75 million dollars in World Liberty Financial, another of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures, these charges were suddenly dropped by the SEC. To attend this dinner, Mr. Sun reportedly purchased roughly $23 million worth of the $TRUMP coin, making him the top buyer on the leaderboard.

“Foreign nationals—who are not allowed to donate a dollar to your presidential campaign under federal election laws—are now purchasing access to you by buying millions of dollars of your personal memecoin. Moreover, given the opaque nature of the cryptocurrency buying process, there are few ways to ensure that the money used to purchase your memecoins are not from foreign governments or illegal proceeds in connection with terrorism, drug and human trafficking, money laundering, or other illegal activities.  […] We deserve to know who is paying for access to you, and what steps you took to ensure that the funds you receive are legitimate and legal, rather than the proceeds from illegal activities,” concluded Ranking Member Raskin.

Ranking Member Raskin demanded Trump release the guest list for the dinner and provide information on the steps Trump undertook to determine whether funds used to buy his memecoin have ties to foreign governments, foreign terrorist organizations, drug cartels, or other criminal enterprises or activities.

Click here to read the letter.