On Wednesday, at the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing regarding the Department of Justice’s FY2026, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asked Attorney General Pam Bondi about the dinner President Trump hosted for the 220 individuals who bought the largest caches of his meme coin.
Merkley asked if the purchasers were foreign nations. Bondi moved to shift the conversation to drug cartels in Oregon.
Merkley replied, “I know you avoided the same question on the House side, but what we know is that many folks who attended this dinner were buying those coins because they want to influence U.S. policy.”
He provided a quote from one of the attendees who reportedly said he bought the coins “because I want a favor from the President.”
Merkley asked Bondi “Don’t you think the American people have a right to know” who attended the dinner — and which foreign nationals bought Trump’s “personal product” and “are trying to influence our government”?
Bondi replied, “It is wildly offensive that you would accuse President Trump of not protecting American interests in our country.”
She also accused the Senator of “playing a gotcha question at a budget hearing.”
.@SenJeffMerkley asks whether foreign interests attended a dinner with President Trump who purchased his meme coins.@AGPamBondi: “I would think that you would want to talk about the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who is living in Oregon.” pic.twitter.com/DyyVEY4DAN
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 25, 2025
The two went back and forth for about five minutes until Merkley concluded, “Let the record note, that in terms of foreign influence and the sale of foreign influence through the President’s coins, she absolutely refuses to respond and instead turns to a whole list of different topics.”
He added, “I think it’s important for the leader of Justice Department of the United States to be very concerned about foreign influence and I encourage you to take on that topic and not consider it as an offense that those of us who are concerned here, Democrats and Republicans, want Americans to be making American decisions, not foreign influence being bought through crypto coins.”