A writer’s workshop in Alaska. Food banks in California. A charity that fights diabetes.
These groups are the unintended recipients of donations from onetime wunderkind Samuel Bankman-Fried. He had sent them to United States lawmakers who now can’t move fast enough to offload the contributions from the disgraced crypto mogul to anywhere else but their own campaign coffers.
Before his arrest in the Bahamas this week, Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was a prolific political donor to individual candidates – from local campaigns all the way up to President Joe Biden – as well as large political action committees, or PACs, which can wield outsized influence in campaigns. But in a matter of days, Bankman-Fried became a pariah facing charges of massive financial fraud and decades in prison.
The Associated Press contacted more than four dozen current and incoming lawmakers who received campaign contributions from Bankman-Fried ahead of November’s election. It’s a group that includes members of both political parties and chambers of the US Congress but that is predominantly Democrats of the House of Representatives. Many of the recipients of Bankman-Fried’s cash were quick to respond, stressing that they had already donated or plan to send the money to charities. Several also stressed that the lawmakers did not solicit the contributions from Bankman-Fried.
Recipients of Bankman-Fried’s campaign largesse included lawmakers at the most senior levels of the House and Senate Democratic leadership. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming leader of House Democrats, donated his contribution to the American Diabetes Association. Pete Aguilar, who will be the third-ranking House Democrat next year, donated his contributions from Bankman-Fried to local charities last month.
www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/12/16/lawmakers-quick-to-unload-ftxs-founders-contributions