SEC Wants Amici of XRP Holders Revoked and John Deaton Barred

Earlier today, defense lawyer James K. Filan tweeted that the SEC, in a heavily redacted letter alleging threats against an expert, asked Judge Torres to revoke amici status granted to XRP Holders. It has also requested to bar lawyer John Deaton from any further participation in the case.

Interestingly, just yesterday, Ripple defendants had filed a letter about the amici request to participate in the expert challenge. Ripple’s letter indicated the SEC wanted amici/XRP holders thrown out of the case entirely.

Earlier last month, the SEC had filed a request to seal its response to the amici motion to participate in the Daubert challenge and had alleged that Deaton had publicized some information they wanted sealed.

The SEC claimed that they sought to seal the documents to prevent further threats to and harassment of their expert. The government agency also made a vehement plea, arguing that no expert witness should expect to be subjected to a campaign of humiliation, harassment, or threats simply by agreeing to act as an expert witness.

For context, Amici is a legal term for people who are not part of a court case but who give information that may be used by the court. And a Daubert challenge is a type of motion made to exclude the introduction of unqualified expert witness testimony.

As expected, crypto Twitter was not impressed with these developments. “The SEC is lying. Nobody from the XRP community is threatening any SEC experts,” says one user under Filan’s latest tweet on the topic. “Do plaintiffs normally play the victim as much as the SEC has here on a weekly basis?” asks another.

In 2020, SEC sued Ripple Labs for issuing and selling unlicensed securities, XRP tokens, to the public. Ever since, SEC, which is infamous for its anti-crypto stance, and Ripple have been embroiled in a legal battle.