Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fred suggested on Thursday in an interview with Conservative Pundit Tucker Carlson that one of the reasons he had been given a harsh prison sentence was because he got closer to the republican party in the construction of his arrest.
“A fact that may be relevant. By 2020 I was mid-left and I gave the bite’s campaign, “he said.” I was optimistic that he would be a kind of solid center-left president. I spent the next few years in [Washington] DC a lot. I made dozens of trips there, and was really, really shocked at what I saw, not in a good direction, from the administration. “
“At the end of 2022, I gave Republicans privately as much as Democrats. And it started to get known just around FTX’s collapse, so it probably played a role, ”Bankman-Fred added.
Bankman-Fred was found guilty of several charges of fraud and conspiracy in March 2024 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He earned over $ 40 million in political donations to 196 members of Congress, including the former speaker for parliament Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) And former majority leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.). In other words, 1 out of 3 legislators took money from him.
Read more: Congress’s FTX problem: 1 in 3 members got cash from Crypto Exchange’s Chefs
During Bankman-Fred’s long trial, it was revealed that he had mulled a number of potential ways to rehabilitate his public image after the collapse of the FTX. An undated Google Doc listed ideas like “Come Out Against the Woke Agenda” and “Go on Tucker Carlsen, came out as a Republican.” With GOP, which is now firm in power in DC, the latter idea has now apparently come to work.
Bankman-Fred told Carlson that he never expected a whole lot from the Democrats, but that he thought some legislators would prove to be thoughtful in both political parties. He criticized the former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) President Gary Gensler and called the agency “something out of a nightmare” during his tenure due to difficulties for cryptic companies to come in and register.
When asked by Carlson whether he had called anyone favors from political figures during his trial, Bankman-Fred refused it. However, the 33-year-old parent, former Stanford Law School professor Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, reportedly met with lawyers and other people in US President Donald Trump’s trajectory in an attempt to secure their son a presidential pardon.
“There’s a long story there. It involves a law firm that took a rather unusual and active role in the case before even giving up control of FTX before it was ever filed for bankruptcy, DOJ had already done his mind. “
Google Doc revealed under Bankman-Fred’s trial also suggested that he planned to “talk about how the lawyers ‘cartel destroys value and throws entrepreneurs under the bus to cover the lawyers’ incompetence.”
Bankman-Fred recently released a series of messages on social media about the difficulties of shooting employees, citing the layoffs adopted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Bankman-Fred was criticized by the crypto community for the posts, who were perceived as an attempt to recover himself with the Trump administration.
