The Democratic Party of The US House of Representatives plans to introduce a bill prohibiting public officers from Congress to the White House to issue political memecoins amid the TRUMP token controversy and the Libra Token Crash.
Proposed Bill To Ban Political Memecoins
On Thursday, Democratic Party Representative Sam Liccardo told ABC News he would introduce a bill prohibiting top US public officials and their families from capitalizing on personal memecoins.
According to the report, Liccardo will propose the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement (MEME) Act to forbid federal officials from promoting various financial assets or participating in conducts that could financially benefit them from these assets.
The Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement (MEME) Act 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.
The bill would include a ban on any financial asset, including stocks such as Truth Social, and impose criminal and civil penalties on the violators. Moreover, it would have a retroactive element to address financial assets issued before the bill’s enactment, like the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.
Liccardo considers US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump “cashed in on their meme coins and enriched investors around the world who initially supported the cryptocurrency.”
The MEME Act will reportedly be introduced on February 27, but it is not expected to become law over the next two years while there’s a Republican majority in the US House and Senate.
However, the Democratic Representative is working on building support for the legislation, with a dozen Democratic cosponsors ready ahead of its introduction.
‘Make Corruption Criminal Again’?
Over a month ago, the US President took the crypto market by storm after launching his official memecoin, TRUMP. The token surged to an all-time high (ATH) of $75 and hit a market capitalization of $15 billion ahead of Inauguration Day.
Following the success of TRUMP, the US First Lady Melania Trump launched MELANIA two days later, which sent the President’s memecoin into a 30% correction.
Crypto investors heavily criticized the Trump family’s memecoin venture, calling it a “big red flag.” The tokens also sparked a debate about whether politician memecoins were a risk for the crypto industry, with Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, voicing his concerns.
In an X post, Buterin stated, “Large-scale political coins cross a further line.” He argued that politician tokens risk being “vehicles for unlimited political bribery, including from foreign nation-states.”
Recently, the non-profit organization Public Citizen urged the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and Department Of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the TRUMP memecoin and the potential violation of federal law barring gift solicitation by US President Donald Trump.
“Let’s make corruption criminal again,” Liccardo told ABC News, adding that public offices belong to the public, “not the officeholders.” He argued that political authority should not be leveraged for financial gain and that “The Trumps’ issuance of meme coins financially exploits the public for personal gain and raises the specter of insider trading and foreign influence over the Executive Branch.”
Following the Libra token controversy, several reports have linked the LIBRA and MELANIA memecoins teams, alleging heavy market manipulation and insider trading. Most recently, Lookonchain claimed that the tokens’ team has allegedly laundered funds worth $2.73 million through suspicious memecoin transactions, sparking more corners about the sector’s future.
TRUMP trades at $12.92 in the one-week chart. Source: TRUMPUSDT on TradingView
