A senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, Jamie Raskin, joined his name to lawmakers seeking answers about President Donald Trump’s recent dinner for top investors in his memecoin, sending questions directly to Trump.

Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has been a vocal critic of the president and becomes the latest of many from his party to probe details about the event, which they’ve called out as evidence of White House corruption. Because Raskin is in the minority party, his demands are unlikely to lead to further congressional action unless they regain the House or Senate in next year’s elections.

“I write today to demand that you release the names of all the attendees at this dinner and provide information about the source of the money they each used to buy $TRUMP coins, so that we can prevent illegal foreign government emoluments from being pocketed without congressional consent,” Raskin wrote this week to the president, joining many counterparts in the Senate in seeking the information, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal.

“We deserve to know who is paying for access to our president, and what steps you took to ensure that the funds you receive are legitimate and legal, rather than the proceeds from foreign states or monarchs or illegal activities,” Rasking said, specifically highlighting Tron founder Justin Sun, a guest who was a major early investor in Trump’s family crypto operations.

Read More: Democrats Threaten Lawsuits, Join Protests Ahead of Trump Memecoin Dinner

U.S. President Donald Trump’s private dinner gala with the top 220 holders of his memecoin, which generated controversy from its announcement, took place on May 22. But what was touted as “the most exclusive invitation in the world” elicited mixed and wide-ranging responses from its attendees.

While some complained about the quality of the food and the lack of interaction with Trump, others appreciated the networking opportunity with the crypto world’s luminaries.

The distinguished attendees

Tron founder and crypto billionaire Justin Sun was the top TRUMP memecoin holder at the event. He was probably also the most controversial figure attending the event.

But Sun was one of many distinguished crypto entrepreneurs around the world who attended the dinner. According to the New York Times, guests at the event included:

The complaints

The gala dinner failed to live up to the expectations and hype for several attendees, who entered as protesters chanted “shame” outside the venue. For one, some complained about the quality of the food served and the lack of options to drink.

Nicholas Pinto, a 25-year-old whose father drove him to the event in his Lamborghini, told CNBC:

“The food sucked…Wasn’t given any drinks other than water or Trump’s wine. I don’t drink, so I had water. My glass was only filled once.”

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Pinto said that he was “very disappointed with the dinner.” He added that he was expecting to be served Big Macs or pizzas.

Pinto was also “very disappointed” with the brief appearance of Trump and the lack of any interaction opportunities. He told WSJ:

“I am very disappointed that President Trump didn’t spend more time at the event. He was not interacting with us.”

Trump arrived in a helicopter at the event around 7 pm. He then briefly greeted the top 25 holders in a separate VIP reception area while the 195 other attendees opened gift bags in the adjacent grand ballroom.

After a speech, where Trump regurgitated old talking points, he left, approximately 23 minutes after arrival. Pinto told WSJ:

“I wasn’t very impressed by the speech, to be honest. I would have liked for him to dine with us, maybe spend more time.”

For Cheng Lu, a 32-year-old crypto investor from Shanghai who was part of the top 25 attendees, things weren’t much different from Pinto. Lu told the NYT that he did not have any opportunity to speak with Trump either at the event or at the guided White House tour on Friday.

Pinto also highlighted that security at the black-tie event was lax, with no RFID-sealed bags for phones. He said:

“Once Trump left, they didn’t really worry about anything else.”

Pinto also added that the opulence of the attendees was on full display, with Richard Mille watches that cost up to $1.3 million being flaunted by at least 16 attendees. But the mood was subdued due to the fact that several of the attendees had already dumped Official Trump (TRUMP). Pinto told CNBC:

“Lots of people didn’t even hold the coin anymore. They were checking their phones during dinner to see if the price moved.”

According to a May 16 Wired report, shortly after their places were confirmed, around half of the attendees started dumping the token. The trend continued even after the event—the price of the memecoin fell by around 8% while the token balances of attendees declined from 11.3 million to 7 million

The bright side

Not everyone was put off by dinner. Former NBA star Lamar Odom, for instance, used the event as an opportunity to promote his own memecoin, ODOM.

Russian-born crypto entrepreneur Nikita Anufrieve told WSJ:

“This is a historical moment, when the 47th President, Donald Trump, performed a speech for us. You cannot compare it to any reward that are [sic] available in the market right now.”

Anufrieve said that he treated the event as a networking opportunity, talking to about 50 people and trying to “get as many contacts as I can.”

Morten Christensen, a 39-year-old onetime poker player who now runs a crypto website, described the dinner as a “whole wild experience.” He told WSJ that the event signals that Trump is “willing to do something with the coin.” Therefore, it will provide more confidence to future investors and collectors, he added.

On the other hand, Sangrok Oh, the CEO of Hyperithm, a Tokyo and Seoul-based institutional digital asset manager, said:

“I understand there has been considerable criticism surrounding this event, but I view this as a social experiment related to crypto. And the outcomes of the experiment is something we need to observe over time.

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As President Donald Trump’s biggest memcoin buyers such as Tron founder Justin Sun bask in his attention over dinner on Thursday, Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups have arrayed a series of protests and complaint sessions to decry the president’s crypto event as fundamentally corrupt.

Trump will host his dinner for more than 200 of his leading memecoin investors, whose money will fill the coffers of the president’s own business entities. They’ve reportedly been invited to his capital-area golf course, the Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C., outside of which the memecoin buyers may encounter protesters.

Some of the counter-programming for his dinner will start earlier in the day in front of the Capitol Building. At 12:45 p.m., Representative Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, will round up other lawmakers in front of the House steps to rail against Trump, accusing him of abusing his White House powers to “shamelessly promote and profit from a series of crypto ventures tied to himself and his family,” according to a notice about the event.

Waters will also introduce a new messaging bill “to block Trump’s memecoin and stop his crypto corruption, once and for all.” The legislation, which is unlikely to make headway in a Republican-majority Congress, would ban presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress and their families from “engaging in similar crypto crime.”

It’s the same type of ban that Democrats had been seeking to insert into crypto legislation, but Republicans have declined to let Trump-targeting language into the current digital assets bills, including the Senate stablecoin effort getting close to the finish line.

Later on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m., another press conference of Democratic lawmakers will feature Senators Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom have been prominent in congressional criticism against Trump’s crypto actions. Murphy had introduced his own bill with a similar aim to Waters’, the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement (MEME) Act to stop federal officials from using their positions to profit from digital assets.

That event — also outside the Capitol — will additionally feature Senator Jeff Merkley, who also intends to join an evening protest right outside Trump’s golf course, hosted by progressive groups under the banner of Our Revolution. The message of the “America Is Not For Sale” rally is to push back on “a blatant example of political access being sold to the highest bidder,” according to the group.

The guest list for the memecoin dinner hasn’t been made public, but analysis of the buying of those coins suggest that the biggest spenders devoted millions for the privilege of joining the president at the event. The attendees’ anonymity is part of the problem, according to critics, who say that foreign buyers are gaining access to the president without the knowledge of the public.

Debate over the president’s crypto ties temporarily delayed progress on the U.S. stablecoin legislation meant to set up rules for domestic issuers, but the bill got back on track this week to clear an important procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday.

Trump’s team has downplayed accusations of corruption. White House official Bo Hines said last week at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 conference in Toronto that the Trump family’s crypto ventures do not pose conflicts of interest, and they have “the right to engage in capital markets.”

Read More: Justin Sun Emerges as Donald Trump Memecoin’s Top Holder With $21.9M Stake

President Donald Trump confirmed that a private dinner will be held on May 22 at Trump National Golf Club in Washington for the top 220 holders of his memecoin, TRUMP. 

Trump made the announcement in a social media post on May 5. The event, organized by Fight Fight Fight LLC, a Trump-affiliated entity, will admit holders based on a leaderboard tracking time-weighted average balances between April 23 and May 12. 

Gala dinner

According to previous reports, the top 25 wallets will receive VIP access, including a photo opportunity with Trump and a guided tour. 

All attendees will also receive a commemorative non-fungible token (NFT) minted on Solana. If the event is canceled, the NFT will still be issued in lieu of attendance.

Participants must cover their travel and lodging, and no guests are permitted. Eligibility is restricted by OFAC guidelines, which exclude nationals from sanctioned jurisdictions such as China, Russia, and Iran. Entry is open to non-US citizens otherwise.

According to CryptoSlate data, the Official Trump token (TRUMP ) was trading at $11.21 as of press time, up 3% over the past 24 hours. 

Market volatility

The team behind TRUMP announced the gala dinner days after a major insider unlock on April 20 initiated a daily emission cycle for TRUMP tokens. 

According to on-chain data, insider wallets labeled CIC Digital began receiving approximately $3.8 million worth of tokens daily, part of a broader unlock schedule running through April 2028. 

This distribution follows an earlier $1.54 billion tranche released in January and a $311 million transfer to insiders on April 19.

On April 29, 1.346 million TRUMP tokens worth $19.5 million were transferred to Binance, OKX, and Bybit, further fueling speculation of insider activity tied to price performance. 

Blockchain analysis platform Kaiko reported that TRUMP trading volume surged 200% on the dinner announcement, with centralized exchange activity temporarily overtaking all other memecoins.

The initial announcement about the dinner on April 23 caused TRUMP to surge 53% from $9.40 to $14.37 within a few hours. The token’s upward momentum persisted until April 26, when it reached $16.03, its highest price since March 3.

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