The Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the Commission is correcting the flawed enforcement actions. gemini space stationclaimed that the crypto exchange run by the Winklevoss brothers was caught up in a broader campaign against the crypto industry under the Biden administration.
“The Biden administration has weaponized federal agencies against the crypto industry and many other industries,” Michael Selig said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “They are politically targeting people like the Winklevoss twins, and that is unacceptable. We are righting those wrongs and will start fresh. This agency should not be used to engage in legal activity.”
“This is an ongoing case, so I won’t get into the facts. … The important thing here is that to the extent that a government agency was used to politically target people, we will withdraw it and start fresh,” he said. “It will never happen again. It will never happen again under my administration or any future administration.”
The comments are the first since the top derivatives regulator asked a federal judge in New York last week to vacate a January 2025 order against the exchange. Former CFTC Chairman Tim Massad calls this “highly unusual.” The order includes a $5 million fine and an injunction prohibiting the company from making false statements to authorities. This was implemented in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
The remarks are the latest sign of the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back Biden-era crypto enforcement actions.
The case began in 2022, when the CFTC sued Gemini for making false or misleading statements to regulators when Gemini was seeking approval for a Bitcoin futures product in 2017. The group alleged that Gemini misrepresented how Bitcoin futures contracts were susceptible to manipulation.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were among the largest individual crypto donors to Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Neither the Winklevoss brothers nor former President Joe Biden immediately responded to CNBC’s requests for comment.
