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Investors in a Melania Trump-themed cryptocurrency that was promoted by the first lady are suing its makers for fraud.
The first lady’s name and the specific meme coin she plugged are part of a revised version of the lawsuit — first filed in April and already amended once — that the plaintiffs sought permission to file this week.
The allegedly burned investors are not accusing Melania Trump of unlawful activity, and she is not named as a defendant. They claim instead that she was used as “window dressing” in the ploy to bilk buyers.
But in accusing her husband of corruption earlier this year over his family’s building its crypto empire while the president steers policy around the industry, congressional Democrats called out the first lady’s promotion of the cryptocurrency named after her, a meme coin dubbed $MELANIA that soon flopped.
As WIRED reports, the plaintiffs asked the judge this week for permission to file an updated version of their ongoing lawsuit accusing Benjamin Chow and Hayden Davis, two men who cofounded crypto-based companies, of leading a pump-and-dump scheme that fraudulently misrepresented the value of numerous cryptocurrencies — including $MELANIA and $LIBRA, a cryptocurrency promoted by Trump-supporting Argentina President Javier Milei.
On Tuesday, the plaintiffs sought the court’s permission to file yet another amended complaint, based on alleged information provided by an anonymous whistleblower. With Chow acting as the “commander,” the pair launched, pumped, and dumped at least 15 crypto coins, the proposed second amended complaint alleges, including $MELANIA. The scheme allegedly inflicted millions of dollars in losses on unwitting investors. Trump, who is not a named defendant in the lawsuit, was used as “window dressing for a crime engineered by Meteora and Kelsier,” the proposed document alleged. The filing further states that the plaintiffs do not allege that Trump or Milei “operated the scheme.”
The White House, Chow and Davis didn’t respond to MSNBC’s requests for comment Friday.
Trump hasn’t said much in response to either the corruption allegations from Democrats or grumbling from some in the crypto realm that he and his family are giving the industry a bad name. Asked about his coin shortly after its announcement, the president said: “I don’t know much about it other than I launched it. I heard it was very successful.”
The first lady endorsed $MELANIA with a post on X at its launch around her husband’s inauguration in January, helping prices jump as high as $12.95 per coin. Earlier this month, she reposted the company’s “Into the Future” slogan featuring an image of herself.
Regardless of the nature of her involvement with $MELANIA — which was available for under a dime a coin as of Friday — the ethics of her hyping a meme coin from her perch as first lady clearly run afoul of norms.
At minimum, it feels safe to assume that if former first ladies Jill Biden or Michelle Obama were in any way tied to allegations of crypto-grifting, the story would be blasted across conservative media endlessly.
And yet, when it comes to Melania Trump, there seems to be an obvious double standard.
Ja’han Jones is an MSNBC opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”
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