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The sale of access to the president to investors in his digital coin has been assailed by Democrats and even some Republicans as unethical.
May 22, 2025Updated 5:50 p.m. ET
Protesters assembled Thursday evening outside President Trump’s Virginia golf course in advance of a private dinner he has planned with several hundred buyers of his cryptocurrency tokens.
Holding signs with slogans like “Grift Gala,” “No Kings” and “No One Is Above the Law,” the demonstrators gathered to challenge the soon-to-start dinner that Mr. Trump is hosting at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., where as many as 220 top holders of his family’s crypto had purchased access to the president.
The protests outside Mr. Trump’s private club followed a smaller gathering at the Capitol, where half a dozen Democrats from the House and Senate denounced the dinner. Some of them called it one of the most corrupt acts in American history and demanded that Mr. Trump release the full names of the guests he is hosting.
“It is a Mount Everest of corruption,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon. He then read excerpts from the Constitution and cited examples in early American history of presidential corruption schemes. “We have to put an end to this,” he said.
Mr. Trump and his business partners organized the event by announcing last month what they called “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION” in the world: a contest to buy access to the president by purchasing $TRUMP, a cryptocurrency token launched just before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
The top 220 buyers would dine with the president at the golf club while the top 25 would join him at a more intimate cocktail reception and tour the White House the next day.
