The former CEO of the FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, suggested on Thursday in an interview with the conservative expert Tucker Carlson that one of the reasons for which he had been sentenced to a severe prison sentence because he was approaching the Republican Party when approaching his arrest.
“A fact that could be relevant. In 2020, I was center-left and I gave the Biden campaign, “he said.” I was optimistic that it would be a kind of solid-left president. I spent the coming years in [Washington] DC a lot. I made dozens of trips there, and I was really, really shocked by what I saw, not in a good direction, of the administration. “”
“At the end of 2022, I gave the Republicans in private as much as the Democrats. And it started to become known around the collapse of FTX, which probably played a role, “added Bankman Fried.
Bankman Fried was found guilty of several accusations of fraud and conspiracy in March 2024 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He made more than $ 40 million in political gifts to 196 members of the Congress, including the former president of the Kevin McCarthy Chamber (R-Calif.) And the former head of the majority of the Senate Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.). In other words, 1 out of 3 legislators took money.
Find out more: FTX Congress problem: 1 out of 3 members have obtained money from Crypto Exchange bosses
During the long trial of Bankman Fried, it was revealed that he had thought about a number of potential ways to rehabilitate his public image after the collapse of the FTX. An undated Google Doc such as “Fix Off Against the Woke Agenda” and “Go to Tucker Carlsen, go out as a republican”. With the GOP now firmly in power at DC, this last idea has apparently ranked.
Bankman told Carlson that he did not expect many things from the Democrats, but that he thought that some legislators would prove to be reflected in the two political parties. He criticized the former president of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, calling the agency “something of a nightmare” during his mandate because of difficulties for cryptographic companies to come and register.
Questioned by Carlson if he had called favors of political figures during his trial, Bankman Fried denied him. However, the 33 -year -old parents, the former professor of the Faculty of Law of Stanford, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, would have met lawyers and other people from the orbit of American president Donald Trump in order to secure their son a presidential forgiveness.
“There is a long story there. This implies a law firm who played a rather unusual and active role in the case, even before having given up control of the FTX, before it was filed with bankruptcy, the Doj had already decided. »»
Doc Google unveiled during the Bankman Fried trial also suggested that he planned to “talk about how the lawyer destroys value and throws entrepreneurs on the bus in order to conceal the incompetence of lawyers.”
Bankman recently published a series of social media messages on the dismissal of employees, in reference to the layoffs promulgated by the Government Ministry of Efficiency (DOGE). Bankman Fried was criticized by the cryptographic community for the posts, which were perceived as an attempt to break into the Trump administration.
