Bankman-Fried Charged With Making Hundreds of Illegal Campaign Donations

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Facts

  • Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Thursday was charged with four new criminal counts, including conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions. This brings his total criminal charges to 12 — four for fraud and eight for conspiracy.1
  • Prosecutors previously accused Bankman-Fried of using FTX customer funds to make up for losses in his Alameda Research hedge fund. He pleaded not guilty to those eight charges, including fraud and money laundering, and he’s currently free on a $250M bond and under house arrest in California.2
  • The new indictment alleges that Bankman-Fried directed at least 300 illegal campaign donations totaling close to $100M in customer funds to politicians from both sides of the aisle through so-called “straw donors” to hide the source of the funds.3
  • By doing this, prosecutors say, Bankman-Fried was attempting to gain influence in Washington, DC over cryptocurrency policy while hiding his political leanings.4
  • Bankman-Fried’s trial is scheduled for October.5

Sources: 1Reuters, 2Guardian, 3NBC, 4Wall Street Journal and 5Forbes.

Narratives

  • Republican narrative, as provided by Daily Caller. Democrats have even more egg on their face now. Bankman-Fried, one of their largest donors, was already revealed as a thief. Now we know he never shared Democrats’ values, as he also donated to Republicans, and mocked left-leaning organizations as “woke” nonsense. Democrats might want to be more discerning about who they align with.
  • Democratic narrative, as provided by Mother Jones. This doesn’t embarrass Democrats, as we now know politicians of all persuasions benefited from Bankman-Fried’s grifting. There should be a bipartisan effort to identify all politicians who received funds from Bankman-Fried, and hold them accountable — including the GOP — especially if they engaged in quid pro quo.