CNN business journalist Allison Morrow said President Donald Trump's exclusive dinner for buyers of his meme coin, scheduled for Thursday night, is shrouded in mystery.
"So there's just a lot of mystery about who it is and really what they want; who are these people and what do they hope to get out of the evening," Morrow said during an appearance on CNN Thursday.
What is confirmed is that 200 or so crypto investors are slated to attend the dinner. "They all paid a lot of money to get there, and they paid a lot of money through a functionally worthless meme coin," Morrow said.
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"Its only function is to make money for the Trump family crypto empire," she said of the meme coin.
"We don't know their identities. And that's partly because crypto is anonymous by design. You can't quite track crypto wallets all the way back to the individual or to the entity that gave the money," she continued.
Morrow added that the optics of the mystery surrounding the event are "angering people on the left and the right."
"Even the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page had a statement out yesterday saying that, you know, he'd help himself by calling this off, but he won't do that," she noted.
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"He could at least disclose the crypto contest winners so Americans may know who's trying to buy access to the president, and that makes a lot of sense," the journalist said.
However, the identity of at least one invitee is known. Justin Sun, a Chinese-born investor, is one of the confirmed guests at the dinner.
"He is known as a bit of a showman in crypto," Morrow said, adding that he is a major investor.
"He's a young 34 year old billionaire, and he's a big supporter of the crypto projects. World Liberty Financial is one of the main ones. It's a crypto trading platform set up by the Trump family, and Justin sun was the first major crypto investor to pour millions of dollars into it and really kind of put it on the map," she added.
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She further noted that Sun has now put over $75 million into that project.
But at the same time, the SEC had been charging Sun with civil fraud charges for potential currency manipulation. "And once Trump got back into office, in February, those charges all but disappeared," she said.
"So that case is on hold and Justin Sun is shaking the president's hand almost certainly tonight," the journalist told CNN's Jake Tapper.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers are strongly criticizing the president over the planned dinner.
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“Donald Trump’s dinner is an orgy of corruption,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday at a press conference. “That’s what this is all about. We are here today to talk about exactly one topic: corruption, corruption in its ugliest form," she added.
Warren continued: “Donald Trump is using the presidency of the United States to make himself richer through crypto, and he’s doing it right out there in plain sight."
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