Sam Bankman-Fried is still the Left’s golden boy. On the same day that UFO coverage and the Hunter Biden plea deal collapse captured the attention of the media, the destroyed and disgraced crypto billionaire convinced Southern District of New York prosecutors to drop a huge charge against him. Democrats to whom the accused Ponzi schemer shoveled millions during the 2022 election cycle were the biggest winners.
Before it imploded, the billion-dollar crypto exchange FTX was a triple threat. On one hand, the Adderral-fueled Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his band of sexually promiscuous mates manically shook down Hollywood and other glitterati from their Bahamas base to keep the alleged grift going. When the money came pouring in, they gave Democrat political friends nearly $40 million in campaign donations during the 2022 election cycle. Sam Bankman-Fried was the Democrats’ dream boat donor. They called their giving Effective Altruism. Truer words were never spoken. Being altruistic with the Democrats was effective.
SBF’s brother, Gabe, who was the company’s lobbyist, considered using his FTX billions to buy an island to create a fortress where only their newly “genetically enhanced human species” could survive the next man-made apocalypse. PJ Media’s Richard Fernandez writes that the billions would also be used to further his family’s Effective Altruism dreams of creating a place where the enlightened could get away from the hordes when the next apocalypse came.
To that end, Gabe Bankman-Fried, who previously worked for a Democrat congressman and Obama-connected digital firm, gave away $360,000 to mostly Democrats and founded the group called Guarding Against Pandemics, a group that reportedly vetted the candidates that received money from the Protect Our Future PAC. SBF’s mom ran her own Silicon Valley political action committee, which gave millions away to Democrats.
The New York Times reports that on Wednesday federal prosecutors dropped the campaign finance charge against Bankman-Fried. This charge was the most politically tantalizing, of course. In addition to millions in direct payments to dozens of politicians including Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and John Boozman (R-Ark.) — Boozman a hand in crafting cryptocurrency legislation. In May of 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried was the largest political donor in the U.S.
Bankman-Fried gave Joe Biden $5.2 million and was his second-largest donor, behind Michael Bloomberg, in the 2020 election.
SBF gave Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) an atta boy for vetoing a crypto regulation bill in hopes of using his influence to craft legislation in his own way. He was lobbying national regulators heavily.
Really excited to see CA taking the initiative on blockchain policy to protect consumers, provide oversight, and help grow the economy. Excited to work with @GavinNewsom on this!https://t.co/EuQsRjJFcK
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) May 4, 2022
In addition to direct donations to Democrats, Bankman-Fried set up a super PAC called “Protect Our Future PAC” in which he funneled $10 million alone into the campaign of unsuccessful Oregon congressional candidate Carrick Flynn. His PAC was ostensibly about pandemic preparedness. Perhaps it was the type of preparedness we saw when Democrats changed voting laws to benefit them under the guise of pandemic response. That might explain the money poured into the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund. Alas, we may never know the depths of this because there will be no discovery divulged on this aspect of the federal case against SBF.
Before his company collapsed, SBF fantasized about even giving more in the 2024 election cycle. Fox Business reported that Bankman-Fried bragged on a podcast in May 2022, when he was the nation’s largest political donor, that he had big plans of spending $1 billion or more in 2024.
He told the Pushkin Industries podcast “What’s Your Problem,” giving in 2024 is “really dependent on exactly who’s running where, for what.” He said that “[$1 billion] is a decent thing to look at as a — I would hate to say hard ceiling, because who knows what’s going to happen between now and then — but at least sort of as a soft ceiling.” In 2022, Bankman-Fried gave about $24 million in donations to candidates and gave away $27 million in his PAC.
Prosecutors divulged in court documents on Wednesday night that they’d drop campaign finance violations charges because the Bahamas government never meant to extradite to the U.S. the one-time crypto billionaire for that. So naturally, the prosecutors’ hands were tied.
They wrote, “In keeping with its treaty obligations to the Bahamas, the government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count.” In June, prosecutors dropped five other counts against SBF that they added in a superseding indictment.
Bankman-Fried’s alleged fraudulent scheme collapsed last winter against a backdrop of U.S. efforts to discredit cryptocurrencies and introduce its own digital dollar. Bankman-Fried’s case is scheduled for trial on the remaining fraud charges in October.
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