Between his recent social posts referring to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an interview with The New York Sun and his conversation with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried seems to be attempting a media rehabilitation tour.
Bankman-Fried suggested to Carlson on Thursday that one of the reasons he’d been given a harsh prison sentence was because he was getting closer to the Republican Party in the lead-up to his arrest.
“One fact that might be relevant. In 2020 I was center-left and I gave to Biden’s campaign,” he said. “I was optimistic he’d be a sort 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 by what I saw, not in a good direction, from the administration.”
“By late 2022 I was giving to Republicans privately as much as Democrats. And that started becoming known right around FTX’s collapse, so that probably played a role,” Bankman-Fried added.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty of multiple charges of fraud and conspiracy in March 2024 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He made over $40 million in political donations to 196 members of Congress, including former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). In other words, 1 in 3 lawmakers took money from him.
Read more: Congress’ FTX Problem: 1 in 3 Members Got Cash From Crypto Exchange’s Bosses
During Bankman-Fried’s lengthy trial, it was revealed that he’d mulled a number of potential ways to rehab his public image following the collapse of FTX. An undated Google Doc listed ideas such as “come out against the woke agenda” and “Go on Tucker Carlsen, come out as a republican.” With the GOP now firmly in power in D.C., the latter idea has now seemingly come to fruition.
Bankman-Fried told Carlson that he’d never expected a whole lot from the Democrats but that he believed some lawmakers would prove thoughtful in both political parties. He criticized former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler, calling the agency “something out of a nightmare” during his tenure due to difficulties for crypto companies to come in and register.
Asked by Carlson whether he’d called in any favors from political figures during his trial, Bankman-Fried denied it. However, the 33-year-old’s parents, former Stanford Law School professors Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, have reportedly been meeting with lawyers and other people in U.S. President Donald Trump’s orbit in an attempt to secure their son a presidential pardon.
“There’s a long story there. It involves a law firm that took a pretty unusual and active role in the case, before I even gave up control of FTX, before it was ever filed for bankruptcy, the DOJ had already made up its mind.”
The Google Doc unveiled during Bankman-Fried’s trial also suggested he was planning to “talk about how the cartel of lawyers is destroying value and throwing entrepreneurs under the bus in order to cover up the incompetence of lawyers.”
Bankman-Fried recently posted a series of messages on social media about the difficulties of firing employees, in reference to the firings enacted by DOGE. Bankman-Fried was criticized by the crypto community for the posts, which were perceived as an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Trump administration.
