Motion to Discharge--S.J. Res. 54
Floor Speech
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, President Trump is engaged in massive corruption. There is a ``government for sale'' sign flashing its lights on the lawn of the White House. He is selling access and influence through two types of cryptocoins: a meme coin which is a digital baseball card, and he invited the 220 people who gave him the most money for these digital baseball cards called a meme coin to come to a dinner where he would feed them at his fancy Virginia golf club, held 2 weeks ago.
And he said: Oh, and the top 25 buyers of my meme coin, those buyers will get some other special access and special tour.
And 220 people gave the President $148 million, approximately, and they didn't give him $148 million in order to have a digital baseball card. They gave it because he was conveying that this would give you access and influence.
As the president of Freight Technologies, Inc., said, I bought $2 million of these coins. I am hoping to buy $20 million of these coins because I want the President to change a policy related to freight transportation between Mexico and the United States of America.
That CEO was saying out loud what everyone else understood: that the President was selling access and influence.
And that is not all. There is another type of Trump coin-- cryptocoin--that is inducing these corrupt practices. It is called a stablecoin. And a company associated with the United Arab Emirates said: You know, we are going to buy $2 billion of your coins. And guess what. You get to keep the value of everything earned on that $2 billion deposit.
Even at 4 percent, that is $80 million a year.
And what did the UAE want?
The UAE wanted advanced AI chips in order to have an advanced AI center in the United Arab Emirates.
Well, what did we see transpire?
The UAE repeatedly advocated for having access to these chips that the United States had previously said were a security risk.
Then a company closely associated with the UAE buys $2 billion of Trump's USD1 stablecoin. And then President Trump says: Oh, do you know what? You can have these AI chips after all. We will help you establish an advanced AI processing--artificial intelligence--center in Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE Emirates. That is corruption laid out as black and white as you could ever see it. This is incredible. This is what we expect of very poor, impoverished countries with dictators running the place, taking a cut of everything, but instead it is the President of the United States doing it.
Our Founders said this should never be allowed. Hamilton noted the reason that there is an emoluments clause in the Constitution. In Federalist 22, he said ``many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments.''
So here were our Founders, putting together this series of checks and balances, separation of powers between a judiciary, an executive, and a legislative branch, but they knew it could all be corrupted if you had an Executive--that is, a President--who could be bought.
Well, folks, we have a President who is being bought, who is advertising it to the world, and we haven't acted to stop it. Our Founders acted. They put a clause into the Constitution that said that ``no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them''--that, of course, included the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, all of us here who are elected-- ``shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.''
Well, the head of MGX is the National Security Advisor of the United Arab Emirates. This company is absolutely intertwined with this foreign government. Our Constitution forbids this type of gift to a President or a Vice President or any one of us.
So here is the fact: We are right now debating a bill dealing with cryptocurrencies, so this is the time to debate and vote on an amendment that bans these corrupt practices.
2307 postcloture, that the pending amendment No. 2310 be set aside so I may offer my amendment No. 2349, which would stop the corruption in stablecoins for any elected Federal official of the United States of America.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I hear an objection from my friend and colleague, the head of the Banking Committee. Would my friend and colleague explain why we shouldn't, while we are on a cryptocurrency bill, consider and debate an amendment to honor the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized. We are in the middle of a series of presentations here.
Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. He recognized you.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you.
I could understand if my colleague was objecting because that amendment only covers one type of cryptocurrency that is being used in this fashion, and therefore I will present a different option, which is to say we should address both the sale of meme coins as a way to profit from people wanting to give us money and we should also cover the stablecoins as well.
So this broader amendment is a more comprehensive way, regardless of what conclusions you might have about President Trump currently, a broader way to ensure as we go forward that this body and the executive branch, the House down the Hall, will not be corrupted by us making personal money by selling something like a stablecoin or a meme coin, a digital baseball card--a way for people to essentially channel us cash, pretending to buy digital baseball cards.
2307 postcloture, that the pending amendment No. 2308 be set aside so that I may offer my amendment No. 2350, which more broadly covers the set of corrupting risks that we would be addressing not just for the executive branch but for the legislative branch as well.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I am disappointed. I was very present when the majority leader said that on this bill, there will be an open amendment process, and we made it very clear that this was one of the issues that we felt we should be debating while we are on a cryptocurrency bill.
There are other amendments that should be considered as well. One of them is to stop a form of scam that bypasses a bank teller by getting older folks to think they are wiring money to perhaps a nephew or grandchild in distress, but instead of wiring the funds, they go and get digital coins at an ATM as instructed, but, in fact, they are just giving the money to crooks overseas. That amendment should be considered.
There are other amendments that address creating more sideboards so that this bill, which purports to regulate an industry, actually regulates it in an effective fashion rather than essentially endorsing an unregulated industry, which is what, in sum, this bill is currently.
So I am disappointed. I would, as I asked earlier, ask for the majority leader to honor his previous commitment to have an open amendment process so that we can pursue the people's work, fighting for a better America, including ending corruption in cryptocurrencies.
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