XRP attorney John Deaton says the SEC sued Ripple executives individually to force a faster settlement, in what he called a deliberate intimidation campaign that reached their families. Ripple fought instead, winning a ruling that XRP is not a security after four years of litigation.
XRP attorney John Deaton said the SEC sued Ripple executives individually to force a faster settlement, describing the move as a deliberate intimidation campaign that reached their families. He made the claim on Sunday.
What Deaton says the SEC did
Deaton argued on X that former SEC Chair Jay Clayton had stated in a prior interview that suing individual executives, even in non-fraud cases, gives the government settlement leverage over a company. Deaton said that is why Clayton pursued the executives personally: "That's why Clayton did it."
Prosecutors then tried to subpoena every credit card and bank statement belonging to CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen, including records from their wives and family members, even though both had already handed over every XRP transaction they had made. The judge shut that request down.
Deaton identified those prosecutors as the team an appellate court later called arbitrary and capricious, and the same lawyers sanctioned in the Debt Box case. He said the complaint was drafted in a fraud-like style despite the agency never alleging fraud, a tactic he described as designed to pressure the defendants into settling.
Why Ripple won anyway
Garlinghouse and Larsen refused to settle, winning the case with 75,000 XRP holders behind them. When the SEC first sued Ripple in December 2020, exchanges including Coinbase began delisting XRP and the narrative was that the token was finished.
Instead, Ripple fought through four years of litigation and roughly $150 million in legal fees. A federal judge ultimately ruled that XRP itself was not a security and that programmatic sales on exchanges did not count as securities transactions. Ripple has since secured licenses across multiple jurisdictions and expanded its U.S. operations.
Where XRP trades now
Whale activity on the XRP Ledger dropped sharply, with transactions worth more than $1 million falling from 70 over the past week to just 2 on Monday. XRP is sitting below its 20-day EMA at $1.1044 and its 50-day EMA at $1.1606.
Buyers have repeatedly defended the $1.03 to $1.05 support zone, but the falling trendline keeps producing lower highs. A daily close below $1.03 would confirm a breakdown toward $1 and then $0.95, while reclaiming $1.10 is the first step to breaking the descending trendline.
Source: Benzinga
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