As Lawmakers Weighed Crypto Regulations, SBF Opened Its Wallet (VIDEO)

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Before his downfall as founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried said his generous political donations were not intended to curry favor with lawmakers working to rein in the industry.

“A lot of these people, I have no idea where they stand on crypto,” Bankman-Fried said in a September interview on NBCs Meet The Press.

But a Newsy investigation into Bankman-Fried’s massive political financial contributions found he was targeting donations to lawmakers working on tougher policies for online currency.

Much of his donations have gone to members of the U.S. House and Senate who serve on congressional committees reviewing the Digital Products Consumer Protection Act, a bill that supporters of the bill say “would create transparency and accountability in the marketplace for digital products”.

The bill was not scheduled for a vote in the House or the Senate.

All of Bankman-Fried’s individual donations in 2022 to sitting U.S. senators went to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, tasked with drafting the bill.

About half of his donations to House members went to representatives on the committee reviewing the same legislation in that chamber.

A federal indictment against Bankman-Fried accuses the former crypto mogul of defrauding investors and violating federal campaign funding limits. FTX has declared bankruptcy.

Bankman-Fried spent nearly $40 million on political donations in 2022, according to records Newsy reviewed at the Federal Election Commission.

Beneficiaries of his generosity now find themselves with potentially contaminated money in their campaign accounts, which could pose a conflict of interest, especially for those working on tougher crypto regulations.

“The people who returned it argued that they were basically trying to wash their hands of this connection between themselves and Sam Bankman-Fried,” said Taylor Giorno, who has tracked Bankman-Fried’s donations at Open Secrets. , a non-profit organization. in Washington, D.C.

Bankman-Fried gave eight US senators to the agriculture committee: Democratic Sens. As well as Republican Senators Richard Durbin from Illinois, Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, Tina Smith from Minnesota and Debbie Stabenow from Michigan. John Boozman of Arkansas, Joni Ernst of Iowa, John Hoeven of North Dakota and John Thune of South Dakota.

The eight senators now say they will donate their contributions to various charities.

A dozen representatives of the House Agriculture Committee, weighing the same crypto bill, also received donations from Bankman-Fried.

U.S. prosecutors and SEC charge former FTX CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried

Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas, where he lived, after the United States filed criminal charges.

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Lawmakers who have said they will not retain those contributions include Democratic Representatives Salud Carbajal of California, Jim Costa of California, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Josh Harder of California, Jimmy Panetta of California, and Representative Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, the the Committee’s best Republican. Other committee members declined several requests to respond to what they planned to do with their campaign checks. Newsy did not receive responses from Democratic Representatives Cindy Axne of Iowa, Shontel Brown of Ohio, Lou Correa of ​​California, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York and Tom OHalleran of Arizona. Asked by Newsy on Capitol Hill, Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia said he’s still considering what to do with his Bankman-Fried donations. Bishop received $2,900 for his re-election campaign and $5,000 for his political action committee.

“We are now looking to see whether or not we can find a nonprofit that we can donate to,” Bishop said.

“Obviously the money was questionable given the indictment. Returning or donating Bankman-Fried donations may not be possible in some cases. Most of the money Bankman-Fried spent in Washington politics went to its own political action committee called Protect Our Future, according to FEC records.The PAC gave to groups supporting left-wing candidates and priorities that might no longer have a lot of money after the midterm elections. The Everytown For Gun Safety Victory Fund, for example, received $48,000 in-kind donations in 2022. There’s no money to return, said the spokesman Max Steele in an email. FEC records show a $6 million donation went to the House Majority PAC, a committee supporting congressional Democrats. A spokesperson for the committee declined to answer questions about the donation.

“I haven’t heard of any major cases where something like House Majority PAC would return $6 million,” Giorno said. Campaign finance reports also show that Bankman-Fried donated $250,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $45,000 to the Republican National Congressional Committee.

Neither committee responded to questions. Bankman-Fried also declined requests for comment.

He once tweeted, “I signed campaigns to accept crypto and gave millions to Senate and House Republicans.”

He also tweeted that he supports “constructive candidates across the aisle to prevent pandemics and bring a bipartisan climate to DC.”

Patrick Terpstra is a national investigative journalist dedicated to accuracy, clarity and fairness. Its reporting is backed by data, recordings and brave people willing to share their experiences. It aims to expose the problems and difficulties of governments, corporations and other powerful entities, while seeking solutions just as hard. His work at Scripps revealed how a couple with no medical background carried out a massive and troubled covid testing operation. He revealed how the state of Maryland had secretly refused to implement key elements of a new online privacy law. He also discovered how mobile phone emergency alerts fail to warn people of deadly wildfires. Prior to joining Scripps, Patrick covered Washington for the Cox Media Group. His reporting on former Congressman Paul Brouns’ office expenses led to the federal indictment and conviction of his chief of staff. @PatrickTerpstra

Rosie Cima is a data journalist at the Scripps DC office and at Newsy. She was a 2018 Knight Data Journalism Fellow at the Center for Public Integrity. She has also worked as an editor at Priceonomics and as a political blogger at MapLight. Other outlets that have published his stories or graphics include: Vox, Quartz, The Washington Post, The LA Times and The Pudding. She holds an MA in Journalism (’12) and a BS in Symbolic Systems (’11), both from Stanford University. When not reporting, Rosie writes, performs and records music.

Rachel Gold is an award-winning data journalist in the Scripps DC office and Scripps Howard Fellow. She graduated from the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University, where Rachel earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. As a student data journalist, she worked to untangle one of the Federal Department of Justice’s largest publicly available datasets. His research, with a partner, revealed that the FBI had dissolved more than 1,900 criminal investigations into child sexual abuse in Indian Country over the past decade. The result was the Howard Center’s Little Victims Everywhere survey, which received an EPPY from the Editor and Publisher for Best Collegiate Survey. After graduating, she was hired as the sole data researcher for the Arizona Center for Investigative Reportings series focusing on Arizona’s public mental health system. Rachel specializes in reporting data with exclusive results and analysis.

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