SBF wants Trump to know he was working with Republicans all along

Sam Bankman-Fried says he donated more money to Republican causes than previously reported and that he no longer plants his political flag on the center-left as he apparently attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump’s administration.

A year ago, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for multiple felony offenses, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and money laundering conspiracy, all tied to the collapse of his crypto exchange FTX.

Before his spectacular downfall, he was the second largest donor to Biden’s election campaign, behind only Mike Bloomberg — a result, he says, of “not wanting the Democratic Party to become the party of Bernie Sanders.”

However, speaking to The New York Sun from Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, Bankman-Fried claims that “he had been giving to Republicans conservative causes a lot more than had been public” and that he had also “been working with Republicans a lot more than had been previously thought.”

According to the former billionaire, he spent years in Washington working with legislators, regulators, and the Executive Branch on a “bunch of issues,” primarily linked to crypto regulation.

However, he says that the Biden administration was “incredibly destructive and difficult to work with.” On the other hand, he claims, the Republicans he encountered were “far more reasonable.”

Bankman-Fried also claims that he wasn’t given a “fair and balanced” trial, blaming — as Donald Trump has done — that the Department of Justice (DoJ) was weaponized against him.

“The story the jury was told was false,” he claims, adding that he believes political bias definitely played a part in the trial.

It’s likely that Bankman-Fried’s comments are a not-to-subtle attempt to align himself with a Trump administration that has already freed another high-profile crypto criminal in the form of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and appears to share his mistrust of the US legal system.

Indeed, the judge who sentenced Bankman-Fried is the same one that oversaw Trump’s sexual assault trial and threatened to have him removed from the courtroom.

“I know President Trump had a lot of frustrations with Judge Kaplan,” Bankman-Fried said. “I certainly did as well.”

Bankman-Fried’s parents reportedly met with Trump representatives earlier this year in an effort to secure a pardon for their son. However, Alan Dershowitz, the high-profile lawyer who helped secure clemency for a number of individuals during Trump’s first term and who has recently received similar requests had some stark advice:

“Call me back in a month. “Right now Trump is busy doing other things.”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.