The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has launched an investigation into three U.S. brokerages, including Trump family-linked Dominari Securities, over their role in underwriting Chinese company listings on American stock exchanges that are suspected of being used in coordinated stock manipulation schemes.
Committee leaders John Moolenaar and Ro Khanna sent letters to Dominari Securities, D. Boral Capital, and Revere Securities, requesting extensive documentation related to Chinese IPOs they facilitated. The request includes internal communications, funding sources, trading records, and compliance procedures used during the listing process. The firms have been asked to submit the requested materials by Friday.
The lawmakers are examining a pattern where newly listed Chinese companies experience sudden price spikes shortly after their IPOs. According to the congressional letters, "clusters of accounts placing nearly identical buy orders above the initial offering price" temporarily inflate share valuations. After the artificial price increase, insiders allegedly sell large portions of their stakes, causing prices to collapse and leaving retail investors with significant losses. Lawmakers described this as a "ramp-and-dump" strategy.
The scale of investor losses is substantial, with the committee citing estimates that roughly $16 billion has been drained from U.S. investors since 2023 through schemes tied to manipulated Chinese listings. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has recorded a surge in related complaints, with reports of stock manipulation involving foreign issuers increasing by about 300%.
Dominari Securities, which operates from Trump Tower in Manhattan and is owned by Dominari Holdings, is drawing particular scrutiny due to its Trump family connections. Public filings show Eric Trump holds a significant stake as the company's fourth-largest shareholder, and both Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. joined the firm's advisory board in February 2025. The brokerage was also involved in fundraising for Thumzup Media Corporation, a public company that later adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy.
The investigation raises broader questions about oversight of small-cap foreign listings in U.S. markets and could lead to stronger due diligence requirements and compliance oversight for investment banks and broker-dealers involved in IPO underwriting.
