Warren Accuses SEC’s Paul Atkins of Misleading Congress

US Senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Paul Atkins, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, of possibly misleading Congress about the agency’s enforcement activity.

Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a letter to Atkins dated Wednesday that the SEC’s enforcement data for fiscal year 2025, released on April 7, raised “significant concerns” about his answers at a Feb. 12 congressional hearing.

“At the hearing, I specifically asked you to comment on publicly available data highlighting a decline in SEC enforcement activity,” Warren said. “In response, you demurred, stating that you were ‘not sure what data’ I was looking at.”

“Now, it is clear that my assertion regarding the SEC’s declining enforcement actions was correct: the data you released last week show that the number of enforcement actions initiated by the SEC was lower than at any point in the last decade,” she added.

An excerpt from Elizabeth Warren’s letter to Paul Atkins claiming she gave him an opportunity “to correct the record” on SEC enforcement. Source: Senate Banking Committee

The SEC has rolled back its enforcement against crypto companies under the Trump administration, settling or dismissing crypto-related lawsuits the agency launched under the Biden administration, garnering criticisms from some lawmakers.

Warren said the SEC’s enforcement data was “deeply disturbing” and showed it had “largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities” as the agency’s enforcement activity had dropped to the lowest level in more than 20 years.

She told Atkins that, in light of the data, his answers at the hearing in February “were deeply troubling and raise concerns that you may have been deliberately trying to mislead the Committee about the state of SEC enforcement.”

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Warren said the hearing took place more than four months after the end of the 2025 fiscal year, and Atkins’ “deflection and claim to be unsure of the ‘data’ I was examining now appear deeply misleading, potentially designed to cast doubt on the now obvious fact that enforcement activity has declined significantly at the Commission under your watch.”

Warren’s letter asked Atkins a series of questions about whether he was aware of the SEC’s enforcement efforts at the time of his testimony and requested that he explain the agency’s decline in enforcement.

The letter asked Atkins to respond to the questions by April 28.

The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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