Republican Representative Tom Emmer fired some serious shots at SEC Chair Gary Gensler during a recent testimony, and it was nothing short of a showdown!
On September 24, Minnesota's own Tom Emmer didn’t hold back as he laid into Gensler’s “disastrous record” during a House Financial Services Committee hearing. Emmer accused Gensler of expecting political loyalty from SEC staff – a claim Gensler denied, despite some eyebrow-raising email evidence.
Emmer didn’t mince words: “The way you hire and the culture you create demands loyalty to you over the law and the SEC's mission.”
And he wasn’t done. Emmer slammed Gensler for abusing the SEC’s enforcement powers, accusing him of luring companies eager to comply only to smack them with enforcement actions. The SEC has been on a legal rampage against big-name fintech and crypto firms like Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance.
“You've retaliated against businesses and individuals trying to innovate American finance,” Emmer charged.
He even brought up a case where the SEC was caught with its hand in the cookie jar, having to cough up nearly $2 million in taxpayer money for legal fees due to misrepresentation in court. Ouch!
Emmer also poked at Vice President Harris’s reported plans to craft clear rules for digital assets, implying Gensler’s approach has been confusing and counterproductive. “Do you think she's rebuking you because you haven't done a good enough job over the last three years?” Emmer asked pointedly.
Gensler’s response? The laws are already there; his job is just to enforce them. But Emmer wasn’t buying it.
He criticized Gensler for inventing terms like “crypto asset security,” which he argued don’t exist in any statute. Emmer accused Gensler of declaring most tokens as “crypto asset securities” as part of a deliberate crackdown on the crypto world.
Wrapping up his fiery takedown, Emmer didn’t hold back: “Your inconsistencies have set this country back. We couldn't have had a more historically destructive, or lawless, Chairman of the SEC.”
It was a clash of titans, and Emmer made it clear he’s not backing down in the fight for clear and fair crypto regulations. Stay tuned because this crypto drama is far from over!
