Milei targets five journalists after LIBRA criminal case dismissal
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An Argentine judge dismissed the LIBRA criminal case and cleared President Javier Milei along with 10 other people. After the ruling, Milei singled out five journalists and questioned who would compensate him for the reputation damage he says he suffered.
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What it means
LIBRA was the token Milei promoted in a February 2025 social media post, after which its value collapsed and investors filed fraud complaints, prompting Argentine prosecutors to open a criminal case naming the president alongside ten other defendants. That case turned on whether a sitting head of state endorsing a crypto asset constitutes deception under Argentine law, a question with no direct precedent and one that made the LIBRA affair a test of how far presidential speech can expose a leader to prosecution.
With the case dismissed, Milei and the ten co-defendants face no further criminal exposure from the 60-page ruling, closing the prosecutorial track that LIBRA investors had hoped would establish liability. Milei instead names five journalists and asks who will pay for his reputational damage, a move that shifts the confrontation from the courtroom to the press. Reporters who covered LIBRA now face the prospect of defamation claims or political pressure, while investors who lost money retain only civil, not criminal, avenues to pursue.
A judge finding no 'criminally relevant deception' in a president's promotional post sets a demanding bar for prosecuting officials over crypto endorsements, and some will read that as sound legal caution while others see impunity for conduct that moved markets. Milei turning a legal win into a public campaign against named journalists raises a separate and sharper question: whether exoneration in court is being used to discourage scrutiny of how officials promote tokens in the first place.
Watch whether Argentine prosecutors appeal the 60-page dismissal covering Milei and the ten other defendants, since an appeal would reopen the fraud question the judge just closed. Also watch whether Milei follows his public naming of five journalists with formal defamation suits, which would turn a political attack into a legal one, and whether any LIBRA investors file civil claims now that the criminal path has ended. (per ambcrypto.com)
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