XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) attorney John Deaton on Sunday said the SEC sued Ripple executives individually to force a faster settlement, calling it a deliberate intimidation campaign that reached their families.

How Far Did The SEC’s Intimidation Tactics Actually Go?

Deaton argued on X that former SEC Chair Jay Clayton explicitly stated in a prior interview that suing individual executives, even in non-fraud cases, gives the government settlement leverage over the company.

“When the full weight and force of the United States Government comes after you, I don’t care who you are — it can be quite intimidating,” Deaton wrote. “That’s why Clayton did it.”

Prosecutors attempted to subpoena every credit card and bank statement belonging to Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen, including records from their wives and family members, despite both executives having already handed over every XRP transaction ever made.

The judge shut that request down.

Deaton identified those same prosecutors as the team an appellate court later described as “arbitrary and capricious” and the same lawyers sanctioned in the Debt Box case for committing fraud upon the court. 

The SEC complaint was drafted in a fraud-like style despite the agency never alleging fraud, a tactic Deaton said was designed to pressure the defendants into settling.

The same team lied to the court, claiming Deaton had threatened to beat up SEC staff, and asked the court to bar him from serving as amicus counsel on behalf of 75,000 XRP holders.

However, Garlinghouse and Larsen refused to settle through all of it, winning the case with those 75,000 holders behind them.

From Delisted To Institutional: How XRP Survived The SEC

When the SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, exchanges including Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) began delisting XRP overnight. The narrative at the time was that XRP was finished.

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 constitute securities transactions. 

CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed last week that Ripple had come close to shutting down entirely and distributing its XRP holdings to shareholders before choosing to fight.

Ripple has since secured licenses across multiple jurisdictions and expanded its U.S. operations, with banks actively building on its payments infrastructure.

XRP Price Update: Key Levels to Watch

Whale activity on the XRP Ledger dropped sharply as crypto analyst Ali Charts noted on Monday.

Transactions worth more than $1 million fell from 70 over the past week to just 2 on Monday.

XRP is sitting below its 20-day EMA at $1.1044 and 50-day EMA at $1.1606.  Meanwhile, buyers have repeatedly defended the $1.03 to $1.05 support zone, but the falling trendline keeps producing lower highs.

Key levels for XRP:

  • $1.03 — losing this on a daily close confirms a breakdown and opens $1, then $0.95
  • $1.10 — first level XRP needs to reclaim to break the descending trendline

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