Recent reports from Washington have raised fresh questions about whether the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could reopen its case against Ripple. The short answer from legal experts: no, not on the same issues.
In a letter dated January 15, 2026, several House Democrats criticized U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins for scaling back crypto enforcement.
The lawmakers said the SEC has dropped or paused more than a dozen major crypto cases since 2025, including actions involving Ripple Labs, Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. They warned that political donations from crypto executives linked to President Donald Trump could create the appearance of a “pay-to-play” system.
Among the cases mentioned was the SEC’s long-running lawsuit against Ripple. That case largely ended in 2023, when a federal judge ruled that XRP itself is not a security and made key distinctions between different types of XRP sales. In August 2025, the SEC said it had closed its case against Ripple Labs, keeping the $125 million fine in place.
The latest political pressure on the SEC led some investors to wonder if the agency could try again.
Legal expert Bill Morgan says the answer is clear: the SEC cannot relitigate the Ripple case on the same grounds.
Morgan pointed to a legal principle called res judicata, which prevents the same parties from reopening a case once it has been finally decided. He explained that because the court already ruled on whether XRP itself is a security, the SEC is blocked from bringing that claim again.
“The SEC lost big time on this issue,” Morgan said, adding that the agency did not even challenge the finding that XRP itself is not an investment contract when it appealed parts of the ruling.
While the SEC cannot reopen claims about Ripple’s XRP sales from 2013 to 2020, Morgan said the agency could still bring a new case focused on future XRP sales, but only if new facts emerge. Even then, the earlier court rulings would strongly limit what the SEC could argue.
For now, despite political noise and renewed scrutiny of dropped crypto cases, the core SEC vs. Ripple fight is legally finished.
