Beleaguered Crypto Billionaire Was Hobnobbing at White House Just Six Months Ago
Sam Bankman-Fried, the owner of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, met on April 22 and May 12 with top Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti, according to White House visitor logs reviewed by the
Washington Free Beacon. At the time, FTX was lobbying Congress and federal agencies to shape regulation of the crypto industry.
The meetings are likely to raise questions about the extent to which Bankman-Fried used the promise of political donations to nudge Democrats toward helping his firm. FTX is
teetering on the brink of insolvency after announcing it could not fulfill its customers’ withdrawal request due to lack of funds. Bankman-Fried lost nearly all of his $16 billion fortune in the liquidity crunch. And his troubles might get worse. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating whether FTX mishandled customer deposits in order to prop up the 30-year-old entrepreneur’s hedge fund, Alameda Research,
according to Bloomberg News.
It is a remarkable fall for Bankman-Fried, who has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s biggest campaign donors. He gave more than $5 million to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, and has given millions more this cycle to the Democratic Party. In early May, between his first two visits to the White House, Bankman-Fried doled out $865,000 to the DNC, according to Federal Election Commission
records. Earlier, in March, he cut three checks totalling $66,500 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and later in June he sent $250,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
