Trump Meme Coin Spurs Silicon Valley Democrat’s Bill to ‘Make Corruption Criminal Again’

In the days before President Trump took office, he did what no other president had done before.

He launched a meme coin.

It’s estimated that the entities behind the $TRUMP cryptocurrency coin, including one owned by Trump, accumulated close to $100 million in trading fees in less than two weeks.

To Silicon Valley’s freshman Rep. Sam Liccardo, the president’s issuance and endorsement of a digital asset raises “glaring ethical concerns.”

“Because whatever the tool, it creates the same risk of self-dealing, of abuse of public office and the risk of foreign interests that may buy up those financial assets to influence decision-making,” Liccardo said.

That’s what led Liccardo on Thursday to introduce the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement Act, or MEME Act, as his first piece of legislation. The bill would prohibit the president, vice president, members of Congress, senior executive branch officials, and their spouses and dependent children from issuing, sponsoring or endorsing a security, future, commodity or digital asset. Liccardo said that’s needed to prevent public officials from using their office for personal gain, ensure investors aren’t able to influence elected officials and protect the general public.

Liccardo admitted that it was “ never my plan to be introducing a bill like this out of the gate,” but he said that as someone representing Silicon Valley, he is responding to “folks in the nascent industry that are very frustrated with the president over this.”

“They don’t like how this paints their industry at a time when they’re trying to get regulations to ensure the legitimacy and legality of transactions in their industry,” Liccardo said.

His bill would also allow lawsuits from crypto speculators who lose money by investing in a meme coin sponsored by a public official. Some 800,000 retail investors lost at least $2 billion when early insider investors quickly sold their $TRUMP coin after its issuance, according to a press release from Liccardo’s office.

First Lady Melania Trump also issued a meme coin that rose and fell quickly in value in the days following Trump’s inauguration. A developer who said he was involved in its launch has also said he helped with $LIBRA, a separate meme coin that led to a corruption probe into Argentine President Javier Milei after he promoted it ahead of its collapse in price.

With Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives, Liccardo said he “doesn’t expect the bill to make it out of committee next week.”

Despite that, Liccardo said the point of the bill is to “make corruption criminal again.” He said he hopes Republican lawmakers will “get a little more of a spine” and support the MEME Act if Trump’s approval rating declines.

“ We know that over time, the cult of Trump starts to degrade, and we’ll see more and more Republicans break away when it becomes so apparent that people in their districts or their states are being so horribly harmed by these policies,” Liccardo said. “And as those things start to happen, we can start to pull Republican support for a bill like this.”