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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Colleagues, we are at an extraordinary time when there is a ``Government For Sale'' sign on the White House lawn. We have never seen this in the history of the United States of America.

President Trump is engaged in an extraordinary level of corruption. Let me just provide two examples.

As President, he said to the world: Come and buy my meme coin, my Trump coin, and you will be invited to a very special dinner to have access to me. And the 220 people who buy the most coins over a multimonth period, hold onto them. You will be invited.

This dinner was held 2 weeks ago, and 220 people spent an estimated $150 million in order to attend that dinner.

A meme coin is basically a nothingburger. What is it? It is not something you can do international transactions on. It is nothing you can print out and put on your wall. It is, simply, kind of a hobby coin.

People didn't pay $150 million for a digital hobby coin. They paid it because the President said: This will give you access to me and my team. And he provided that access. And he said: The top 25 buyers of this coin will get something extra special, some extra special tour. Initially, it was said it would be of the White House. Later, it was not clear if it would be at the White House. In fact, there is no transparency.

We do not have a list of who these 220 people are or what they paid. But we do know one of these individuals; that is the individual Javier Selgas. He is the CEO of Freight Technologies. He said: We bought $2 million of the Trump meme coin, and we are planning to buy $20 million of the Trump coin in order to influence the policy of how freight is treated between Mexico and the United States of America.

He was very clear about it: We are buying access, and we are buying influence.

What happens with that money? It simply goes into Trump's pocket. Is he producing an item of any value that he is selling? No. He is selling access and influence. So that is one example.

Then, he has another crypto enterprise in which he is inviting folks to use a digital coin, a different type of digital coin called a stablecoin; use it in international transactions: Give me your dollars. I will invest your dollars. I get to keep all the proceeds from those investments, and you can use my digital coin called USD1 for international business transactions.

Why would you use this coin instead of just using the dollars themselves? To make special affection on behalf of the President of the United States of America.

There is a company, MGX. MGX is tied to the Government of the United Arab Emirates. MGX said: ``We will buy $2 billion of your coins.''

That makes the $2 million from Freight Technologies or the $20 million they were planning pretty small chump change because now you have a company saying we will buy $2 billion of your coins.

And what did they say they wanted? They said they wanted advanced AI chips, artificial intelligence chips. They wanted a world-leading AI center to be built in the United Arab Emirates.

Now, technically, it would be done through MGX. But who is the chair of MGX? The national security advisor for the Government of UAE.

So what transpired is UAE says: We want this AI center.

MGX, associated with the government, says: We will buy $2 billion of your digital coins.

And the President goes to the Middle East and says: Do you know what, I support establishing an advanced AI center, and we will partner with it in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi is one of the Emirates of UAE.

So here we have Freight Technologies on one type of coin saying we are buying these coins to get influence. Now you have MGX and UAE buying $2 billion of coins in order to get influence. This is the U.S. Government for sale in a way we have never seen. This is the Mount Everest of corruption.

And right at this moment, the Senate is debating a cryptocurrency bill. Isn't this the moment we should debate whether or not Federal elected officials--ourselves, the Vice President, the President, members of the Cabinet--should be offering for sale our personal coins in order for people to give us money? Because, really, it is just like somebody handing us a sack of money. That is what this is like.

Forbes magazine has now estimated that within the first few months of the Trump administration, the Trump family has built value in their crypto industry of $1 billion. If he had not been elected, it would be worth nothing. But because he is pumping it as President, both the meme coin and USD1 the stablecoin, the world is saying: If we want influence, we have to buy these coins. Just like in his first administration, folks said: If we want influence, we have to stay at his properties. We have to book his hotel rooms. We have to hold our events at his special locations, be it his golf courses or his hotel conference centers.

But those hotel rooms or booking conference centers in his first term are nothing on the order of magnitude of selling these cryptocurrency coins.

That $2 billion that Trump holds, his family holds, even if 4 percent is invested, that is $80 million a year. And with the passage of this bill, if we do not put an anti-corruption measure into this bill, the world will be saying: Just as we rented his hotel rooms when we do an international business transaction, we have to use USD1.

That is why we should be debating amendments on this bill. We have a responsibility to address the concerns of the people of the United States of America.

And from our very beginning--from the very beginning--on through the last now 250 years, we have been concerned about corruption and having our government end up for sale. If we turn the clock back to our Founders, Hamilton said we put an emoluments clause in our Constitution so our elected leaders could not be bribed:

[M]any mortifying examples of the prevalence of foreign corruption in republican governments.

It was to counter that foreign corruption that he had already witnessed in republican governments. So in establishing our Republic, with our separation of powers, with our checks and balances, with our vision of government by and for the people, you can't allow the elected leaders to take bribes or to take, if you will, tribute money to influence.

People say: Well, it is not a bribe if it is not tied to a specific act. Obviously, the CEO of Freight Technologies had a specific act in mind. He wanted to change a rule regarding freight transactions between Mexico and the United States of America. Clearly, the UAE had a specific desire in mind. They wanted AI chips, and they got them.

Maybe in a court you could not establish a direct this-for-that--quid pro quo, if you will--but certainly these companies knew what they were doing. They were buying access and influence. So in that sense it is at least a payment of money to the President of the United States to gain access and gain influence, and that is exactly the type of corruption that Hamilton said he had witnessed ``mortifying examples,'' and so we put a clause into the Constitution to say this could not be done.

All right. So we have a responsibility. We took an oath to the Constitution. Every single colleague, all 53 across the aisle, took the same oath to the Constitution. So now is the time to actually debate this issue and defend the Constitution. If you are not willing to debate an amendment to defend the Constitution, then essentially you are ignoring your oath to the Constitution; you are violating your oath to the Constitution of the United States of America.

When this bill came to the floor, the majority leader said we will have an open amendment process, and that was a factor considered by many colleagues when they voted for moving this bill to the floor, that there would be an opportunity for amendments. But now that the bill is here, suddenly, the Republican leadership that controls the floor says: No. We are closing off amendments. We are not going to allow any examination of the corruption that is present through this industry. We are not going to allow any examination of the loopholes in the regulatory framework that is in this bill. We are not going to allow any examination of the scams being enacted on ordinary citizens using these digital currency--these cryptocurrency ATMs.

I had never even heard of these ATMs. It turns out that there are over 300 of them in my State of Oregon. I have asked my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: Have you heard of these? They said no.

But one of our colleagues was very familiar with this form of scam on seniors--Senator Durbin. He has an amendment that should be considered.

So because it is so important that we take this moment and we honor our responsibility to examine these issues, I will be coming back to the floor in order to offer a point of order that this bill violates the Senate pay-go provisions and, therefore, we shouldn't be doing this bill until that is remedied. I will also be coming back to table the blocking amendment that the majority leader put in place to prevent anyone from offering amendments. So both those votes will occur about half an hour from now.

Let's get our heads together about our responsibilities as Senators representing the people of the United States. Let's get our heads together about our responsibility to the Constitution. Let's get our heads together about taking on this open sale of the government being conducted out of the Oval Office, just down Pennsylvania Avenue.

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