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Judge Katherine Polk Failla said she would hear from SEC and Coinbase lawyers on July 15 whether SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s private communications on crypto were fair game.

A federal judge overseeing the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case against Coinbase suggested that the cryptocurrency exchange may be unable to inquire into Gary Gensler’s private communications before he led the commission. 

In a July 11 hearing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Coinbase lawyers argued they should be able to view data on Gensler’s personal devices after the SEC provided no explicit assurances on his communications with market makers. The SEC’s legal team asked Judge Katherine Polk Failla to quash the subpoena into Gensler’s personal communications, as the chair was “not a fact witness” and “not an expert witness on the law” in the Coinbase case.

“We’re unable to get information from the SEC,” said Coinbase lawyers, according to reporting from Inner City Press. “The time period before, we included because we tried to engage with Mr. Gensler and the SEC, but they’ve refused to say he didn’t use his personal device to communicate about crypto.”

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