Ripple partner Ballard manipulated Trump into including XRP in the US Crypto Strategic Reserve

According to Politico, Donald Trump has set up one of his own allies. In early March, he approved a post in reality society about a new “crypto strategic reserve,” thinking that it would fulfill his crypto promise to voters.

But the President does not seem to know that he is helping Ripple Labs, a company that linked to Brian Ballard, a long lobbyist with a deep relationship with Trump's political world. For a few hours, Trump was furious. He realized that he had just strengthened a firm paying a ball – even knowing it.

This weekend, Trump was on Mar-a-Lago for a donor event. Ballard's employee – for the weekend – he was tracked in person and continued to push him to support the public publicly. He even gave him a printed message, written.

Trump ignored him at first but gave after repeating pressure. He passed the note to a staff and told them to post it. It wasn't until he was late that he learned Ripple, one of the companies named in the post, was a Ballard client. “He is no longer welcome,” Trump told people in the White House that month.

Trump cut Ballard from the White House

After the XRP stunt, Trump was completely frozen. He told his assistants to stop taking meetings with Ballard, and Ballard's name became toxic inside the west's wing. Although Ballard has built a reputation as one of Washington's strongest lobbyists, his access to the White House has gone overnight.

Ballard is known for his connections-sometimes he cooperated with Susie Wiles, now the head of Trump's staff, and has a long-standing relationship with Pam Bondi, the former general of the lawyer.

Ballard has represented the Trump organization for many years. He is one of Trump's largest fundraiser and has led Florida financial teams for every Republican nominee since 2008. After Trump opened in 2017, Ballard opened a DC office, which quickly became one of K Street's leading profits.

That reputation has helped him to sign 130 new clients since Trump won the election in 2024. Clients include JP Morgan, T -Mobile, Palanteir, and Netflix. In the first quarter of 2025, Ballard's firm gained $ 14 million, traveling what it did the same time last year.

But nothing is important to Trump after the XRP trick. People in the administration said Ballard was overstating how close he was to Trump and Wiles. Trump's ally said, “One way to get yourself in the Dawhouse is for the President to think you are trading in his name.”

Another is that Ballard said “overstates his importance and value.” Although Ballard denied the use of his relationships to win clients, confidence was broken.

Ballard said Politico, “We are accustomed to false accusations from unnamed resources because of the success that our firm enjoys.” He said he was not frozen and claimed that Trump was still in contact with the people.

And honestly – Ballard still got invitations to Trump's fundraisers and even had a call scheduled to an old officer after the XRP incident. His clients, like the NFL, still met with the President.

Crypto Czar David Sacks exploded in the Ripple-XRP post

Inside the White House, the XRP post caused a melting. As soon as it went up, David Sacks, who were leading Trump's crypto policy, was reportedly called Susie Wiles and asked to know what had happened.

There was a crypto summit to come, and the President had just praised a specific company, Ripple, without mentioning his own crypto start.

Susie was not with Trump this morning. He started calling to find out what led to the post. That was the White House staff that the XRP token was tied to Ballard. The employee who pushed the message asked Trump to post it more than once.

A man who witnessed once said Politico was told that Trump was “criticizing him – then he kept interrupting him and finally just gave it to a staff to release.”

After the backlash, Trump made another post with the other crypto names. But it's too late. He peed. His assistants were pissed off. One of them called Ballard directly and shouted at him. They believe Ballard used his employee to get Trump to advance a client.

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