On Thursday, California Rep. Brad Sherman started trending on Twitter after Fox Business Network’s (FBN) senior journalist claimed that Sherman went on record arguing how he believed that the SEC would easily win its case against Ripple over the legality of its unregistered sales of XRP. Following this, the media outlet also reported that the congressman was in contact with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to expand the case. However, Sherman took to Twitter, quashing this as fake news.
The Congressman alleged that the news outlet “has it somewhat wrong”. He added that while he often speaks to SEC Chair Gensler, which also includes crypto discussions. Nevertheless, Sherman asserted that he has never had a conversation regarding XRP. Following this, he ascertained that the only conversation he ever had with “an SEC official regarding XRP is the testimony of Director Gurbir Grewal”.
Sherman: SEC Is Caveating From Taking Down “Big Fish” Crypto Exchanges In XRP Dispute
Earlier this week, Congressman Sherman’s questioned the SEC Enforcement Director, Gurbir Grewal, seeking answers on why the commission was going after Ripple and XRP when they could be probing crypto exchanges that offered the XRP cryptocurrency. Sherman noted —
“You’ve gone after XRP because XRP is a security, but you haven’t gone after all the major crypto exchanges that process tens of thousands, if not far more, transactions”. He added that “if XRP is a security — and you think it is, and I think it is — why are these crypto exchanges not in violation of the law?”
While Grewal didn’t respond properly and said he is bound to confidentiality and cannot “talk about what matters we are looking at or not looking at”, he also highlighted the SEC’s case against the crypto exchange Poloniex for offering unregistered securities. Despite that, Sherman countered that by saying that the SEC is going after small fish because it’s convenient.
He asserted that “it’s easier to go after the small fish than the big fish, but the big fish operating the major exchanges did many, many, tens of thousands of transactions with XRP. You know it’s [a] security, that means they were illegally operating a securities exchange.” He added that many exchanges have stopped offering XRP.