The Bipartisan Group That Once Defended Crypto Firms From SEC Investigations May Have Gone Silent In Recent Months, But Their Crypto Loyalties Remain.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Henry Burke, [email protected]
Ahead of The HouseFinancial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion Hearing on “Coincidence or Coordinated? The Administration’s Attack on the Digital Asset Ecosystem” Revolving Door Project Researcher Henry Burke released the following statement:
“Despite attempts by members of The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion to appear impartial towards cryptocurrency and other digital assets, the subcommittee contains a bipartisan group of lawmakers who have sought to defend the cryptocurrency industry from regulators, and promote risky investments in unregistered and unregulated assets to some of our nation’s most vulnerable retail investors.”
“Eleven months ago, a bipartisan group of eight legislators sent a letter to the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, complaining that his agency was overreaching its authority by requesting information from crypto companies. Though these eight legislators have claimed to not be interfering in an ongoing investigation, their intent was clear: to let it be known that the digital asset industry was not to be subjected to the same scrutiny as other financial industries.”
“In the year following their letter, we have seen the unscrupulous crypto industry unravel as companies like FTX, Terraform Labs and others have declared bankruptcy, with retail investors suffering the consequences of corporate misconduct. The Members of Congress who promoted cryptocurrency as a means of building wealth among Black Americans only helped to serve the crypto industry’s efforts to reach new markets, which left minority communities disproportionately harmed by the crypto crash.”
“Today, five of the eight lawmakers who wrote the SEC letter sit on the newly created Digital Assets Subcommittee. They are Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Warren Davidson (R-OH), and Byron Donalds (R-FL). None have apologized for their conduct. In fact, several have blamed the FTX crash on a lack of SEC enforcement – enforcement that they decried as government overreach just months before.”
“It is clear that members of the Digital Assets Subcommittee will seek to use this hearing to protect their allies in the crypto industry, seeking to insulate them from the regulation that is sorely needed to protect American consumers, while ignoring their own role in furthering the goals of crypto scammers like Sam Bankman-Fried.”
“Congressional oversight of the executive branch is necessary, but it must be pursued in the best interest of the American public. Rather than defending the crypto industry’s innovation of high-tech Ponzi schemes, the Subcommittee on Digital Assets should be working to understand what resources regulators require to protect the public from fraud and should be encouraging the SEC to pursue a stringent application of existing securities law against those who violate it.”
“We hope that the journalists covering this hearing will take care to include the past statements of these members and disclose their close financial ties to donors in the digital asset industry.”
For more information, please read our document on the House Financial Services Committee’s crypto proponents.
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