I’ve noticed that numerous stories in mainstream coverage of this guy point out that he was a “major donor to Democratic candidates.” I realized how screwed up life has become when the first thought that entered my mind was that “conservative” news spinners are setting Bankman-Fried up as a liberal/Democratic/Jewish/elite/etc. straw man for Fox to pummel. As if he wasn’t in fact one of their own. Fuggumall.
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He split his donations almost equally between Democrats and Republicans. He was counting on favours from both.
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He set himself up a bit. He made just as many if not more contributions to conservative pols - but they were hidden.
He didn’t want that to step on the altruism lie he was selling. Bad for the con.
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That’s what he’s saying, and it very well may be true, but the dark money contributions that he claims to have made are inherently (and intentionally) difficult to track so at this point we don’t really know. It’s possible (but probably unlikely) that he’s exaggerating his GOP contributions in some sort of attempt to avoid becoming one of their boogiemen. But who knows why he does what he does.
What is publicly disclosed in FEC filings is about $40M to Democrats and $200k to Republicans.
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The Libertarian Party was recently taken over by its rightest wing, the “Mises caucus” so-called for a dead economist they want to be associated with. If you ever felt the term “libertarian” was unfairly freighted by its association with crypto-Nazis, bowtied pedophiles and outright lunatics, I’m afraid those guys are now in charge of the political party by that name. Vocal antisemitism from unexpected quarters brings an immediately liberating effect to their own: here’s its take on Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced crypto bro whose exchange spectacularly collapsed last week. The depiction incorporates the antisemitic “happy merchant” meme.
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Via Pluralistic.net (Cory Doctorow):
Citizens United and the FTX meltdown (permalink)
[…]
The collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and its affiliated businesses has left a million creditors holding the bag for a chaotically managed, corrupt enterprise that created vast personal fortunes for the conspirators who ran it, even as it stole the life’s savings of retail investors who bought into its lies.
Could the unsuspecting public have been shielded from the FTX Ponzi scheme? Hindsight is 20/20, but there’s good reason to believe that FTX could have been brought down in a controlled glide, rather than a nose-first crash landing and ensuing fireball.
Earlier this year, the SEC sent a letter to FTX seeking answers about its business practices – a letter that sought to determine whether FTX was as scammy as it appeared. The SEC never got the answers it sought, thanks to the intervention of eight Members of Congress – the “Blockchain Eight,” four Dems and four Republicans – who wrote to Chairman Gary Gensler demanding that he back off.
Five of the Blockchain Eight received substantial cash contributions from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) or his employees or affiliated businesses and PACs. Bankman-Fried is widely characterized as a Democratic super-donor, but his political spending is basically 50-50.
[…]
BF and his co-conspirators gave money to politicians to further their own ends, not to save the world. They understood that if they gave money to politicians, that politicians would intercede to keep regulators from keeping them honest.
The questions in the original SEC letter went to the heart of the FTX fraud, seeking to establish that FTX was marketing unregulated securities disguised as a “rewards” program, and that FTX was stealing from depositors and handing their money to its hedge-fund affiliate Alameda to gamble with.
Hedge-fund managers are notoriously bad at their jobs, generally underperforming a low-load S&P 500 index fund, but even by those low standards, Alameda was a very bad hedge-fund, losing $3.7b in a “raging crypto bull market.”
[…]
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Huh, the guy who ran something that was clearly a scam from the beginning actually got arrested. I’m not surprised here, but I suppose it was far from a given, since crypto was involved. (A number of crypto billionaires seem to be getting bumped off, which isn’t too surprising, given crypto being used by organized crime for laundering money, etc.)
He genuinely didn’t seem to think he’d actually get arrested - at least that’s what he was saying, publicly, as he blithely went about giving interviews and just pretending like nothing criminal had happened…
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The GOP prefers to take their money dark. Sammy wasn’t any different than the other cryptobros in knowing that they have to buy legislators on both sides of the aisle if they want to run their pyramid schemes at full bore with the least regulation possible.
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Kinda wonder who prompted the Bahamian Police to move in and arrest Mr B-Fried. As a result he was a no show for a televised hearing. He’s been on the island for quite some time.
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As complicated as Bernie Madoff’s schemes-- not very. The article mentions that in one instance he got a 30 million dollar investment by lying about it, so at the very least he’s likely to follow the same fate as Elizabeth Holmes.
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One possibility was that the invitation to the hearing was to lull him into believing he had everyone fooled. Also, Schlubby Sam may have been trying to work out a shady deal with officials in the Bahamas and the U.S. authorities had to step things up.
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Yep. The Intelligencer article posted by @jerwin says:
So far, investigators have only been able to say where a fraction of the $8 billion in lost customer deposits went: $1.4 billion for real estate bought by Bankman-Fried for himself and his parents; the $775 million in loans to just two of his top executives; and $40 million in unnamed political contributions
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Huh. Per the FEC that’s also how much he spent in declared contributions to Democrats, so if this $40M was separate dark money contributions to the GOP then he was actually being honest about spending equally on both parties.
(Not that being honest about something like that is likely to earn him any friends)
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“… I’m just illustrating how it’s foolish to trust anyone. My scams are educational!”
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I guess those are the ones we hear about. 
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Yup. He failed to learn the lesson of Bernie Madoff…
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See, that’s the problem with these losers- you always, ALWAYS have to have an exit strategy BEFORE you start the job. To quote noted con artist James “Slippery Jim” DiGriz: “Turn your back and walk away- And live to graft another day”
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- Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud on Customers
- Wire Fraud on Customers
- Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud on Lenders
- Wire Fraud on Lenders
- Conspiracy to Commit Commodities Fraud
- Conspiracy to Commit Securities Fraud
- Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
- Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Violate the Campaign Finance Laws
FORFEITURE ALLEGATIONS
21. As a result of committing the offenses alleged in Counts One, Two, Three, and Four of this Indictment, SAMUEL BANKMAN- FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, shall forfeit to the United States, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section981(a)(1)(C) and Title 28 United States Code, Section 2461(c), any and all property, real and personal, that constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the commission of said offenses, including but not limited to a sum of money in United States currency representing the amount of proceeds traceable to the commission of said offenses.
22. As a result of committing the offense alleged in Count Seven of this Indictment, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, shall forfeit to the United States, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 982(a)(1), any and all property, real and personal, involved in said offense, or any property traceable to such property, including but not limited to a sum of money in United States currency representing the amount of property involved in said offense.
23. If any of the above-described forfeitable property, as a result of any act or omission of the defendant: (a) cannot be located upon the exercise of due diligence; (b) has been transferred or sold to, or deposited with, a third person; (c) has been placed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court; (d) has been substantially diminished in value; or (e) has been commingled with other property which cannot be subdivided without difficulty;’ it is the intent of the United States, pursuant to Title 21, United States Code, Section 853(p) and Title 28, United States Code, Section 2461(c), to seek forfeiture of any other property of the defendant._up_to the value, of the above forfeitable property.
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If only he could convince the feds that he was just a clueless moron, like Skyler did in that scene with the IRS agent in Breaking Bad…
(By which I mean a moron who is so stupid that he didn’t even know that he was managing the money wrong, and therefore wasn’t criminally liable.)
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