On April 22nd, Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company with ties to President Donald Trump, announced that the 220 top investors in its meme coin $TRUMP would be invited to meet with Trump himself. The event was billed as an “intimate private” dinner, but with obvious hints that attendees were buying an elected official’s time. Around the date of the announcement, federal government officials reportedly registered three websites apparently related to the dinner: thetrilliondollarinner.gov, dinnerforamerica.gov, and thetrillion.gov. At least one, it was reported, temporarily directed to a Department of Commerce login portal, suggesting that the coin was somehow linked to the government. The coin’s price jumped by more than 50 percent after the dinner was announced, netting Trump and his allies nearly $900,000 in trading fees in just two days.
Two democratic senators demanded an ethics probe into the May 22 dinner, but in February, Trump fired the head of the body that would typically investigate that type of alleged misconduct.
The meme coin dinner is the kind of open graft controversy that would have been unfathomable under previous administrations, even Trump’s first term eight years …