Author: Brayden Lindrea, CoinTelegraph; Translator: Zhu Tao, Jinse Finance
A Democratic congressman is calling for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to investigate whether Donald Trump's cryptocurrency investments conflict with his presidential duties.
Virginia Congressman Gerald Connolly, in a January 21 letter to the committee's Republican chairman James Comer, said that Trump may have profited from his World Liberty Financial (WLF) platform and the official TRUMP memecoin, which could violate ethical standards and pose national security risks.
Connolly said Trump's WLF is "particularly troubling" because its largest investor - Tron founder Justin Sun - is a foreign entrepreneur accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of securities fraud.
He added that such financial "entanglements" raise "serious national security concerns" about foreign influence on U.S. policy.
Sun invested $75 million in WLF by purchasing the platform's namesake token. Connolly said this investment helped Trump family companies exceed their self-imposed income threshold, "potentially funneling cash directly to President Trump."
Connolly said: "If this practice is allowed to continue unchecked, it will signal to the American people that the Oversight Committee is unwilling or unable to enforce the standards it claims to uphold."
Letter from Gerald Connolly to James Comer of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Source: Democratic members of the Oversight Committee
He added that without the committee's intervention, Trump is unlikely to support a "single provision" of the Presidential Ethics Reform Act. This law requires disclosure of financial information and conflict of interest checks.
"If these reforms are to have any meaning, they must be universally applied," Connolly said.
Trump's team launched the controversial TRUMP memecoin just two days before the inauguration, raising concerns from ethics experts about Trump potentially "profiting" from his presidency.
Trump acknowledged in a January 21 press conference that he was not very familiar with the issuance of the TRUMP token. "I don't know where it is. Other than I issued it, and it's very successful, I don't know much about it."
