Democrats voice crypto ‘pay to play’ concerns citing Justin Sun

Democrats are now turning up the heat on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on its 2025 regulatory rollback in the crypto sector.

In a letter to the SEC’s Chair Paul Atkins, three House Democrats, Maxine Waters (D-CA), Sean Casten (D-IL), and Brad Sherman (D-CA), pressed for enforcement action against Tron founder Justin Sun.

According to the trio, charging Sun would help compensate victims and regain Americans’ trust. 

The letter added, 

Democrats’ claims and demands

According to Waters and her colleagues, the SEC’s temporary pause on Sun enforcement was allegedly influenced by his investment in the Trump family’s crypto empire.  

The lawmakers claimed that between late 2025 and early 2026, Sun contributed at least $75 million to World Liberty Financial [WLFI], the DeFi project backed by the Trump family.

After the court’s pause on his case in late February 2025, Sun doubled his efforts, per the legislators. 

They wrote that Sun became the top purchaser of Official Trump [TRUMP]. Additionally, the crypto founder allegedly offered to buy $10 million WLFI to unlock his 545 million WLFI tokens, a trend the leaders called a “pay-to-play” scheme. 

Democrats: Crypto has interfered with SEC

But the accusation didn’t stop at Sun. The lawmakers accused the SEC of rolling back enforcement actions against Coinbase, Ripple, Binance, and others due to “political interference.”

They decried crypto firms whose cases were dismissed or settled, which used the “pay-to-play” scheme. 

The trio added that the scheme has influenced the SEC’s actions, leaving U.S. investors unprotected. 

That said, Tron [TRX] price didn’t react to the update. It posted a 2.6% gain on the 15th of January, scaling recovery to 15%. But it eased slightly at press time, after Bitcoin stalled below $97k. 

Final Thoughts

• Democrats, led by House member Maxine Waters, pressed the SEC to charge Justin Sun to shake off ‘political interference’ claims. 
• At press time, the altcoin price was not impacted and followed broader market sentiment despite the update.