SBF planned to blame everyone but himself, leaked congressional testimony shows

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Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, was arrested on December 12, a day before testifying remotely before Congress. A copy of his testimony, obtained by Forbes, points out that the disgraced CEO planned to blame everyone but himself for the spectral downfall of his $32 billion empire.

SBF continued the same rhetoric about FTX.US, the global cryptocurrency exchange’s sister company, in its testimony. He claimed the US-based entity was still fully solvent despite being part of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed on November 11. Bankman-Fried wrote:

I wish I hadn’t clicked a button on Docusign at 4:30am leaving part of FTX under destructive management.

He then blamed the inclusion of FTX.US in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy on John J. Ray III, a restructuring attorney who assumed the role of CEO of FTX after the bankruptcy filing. SBF claimed US customers were protected, at least until Mr. Rays’ team took over.

Ray, on the other hand, has been very critical of the former FTX CEO and his management skills. In his testimony for the FTX investigative hearing, Ray said that in all his years working as a restructuring lawyer, he had never seen such a complete failure of corporate controls at all. levels of an organization, from the absence of financial statements to a complete failure of any internal control or governance whatsoever.

In the leaked document, SBF also blamed the inclusion of FTX.US in Chapter 11 on the bankrupt law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. While Bankman-Fried himself signed the bankruptcy paperwork, he claimed the law firm pressured him to file the Chapter 11 paperwork and wrote:

I have 19 pages of screenshots of Sullivan & Cromwell, Mr. Miller and others who I believe were influenced by them, all sent over a two day period, urging me to file quickly for the chapter 11.

SBF also attacked FTX.US General Counsel Ryne Miller, accusing him of being part of the lobby group that wanted to include the US-based entity in the bankruptcy filing.

Related: Hours before his arrest, SBF denied being part of the Wirefraud newsgroup

Besides Ray and his legal aides, SBF was also going to blame Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao for what he claimed was a month of sustained negative public relations on FTX. He claimed that Binance knowingly signed the letter of intent to buy FTX, but they never intended to complete the deal.

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