FTX Scandal Is Still Throwing Off Tens Of Millions Of Dollars
Yesterday, Lewis Kaplan, the federal judge presiding over the FTX case— now that they removed the corrupt judge whose husband worked for FTX— set the pretrial hearing in New York City and excused Bankman-Fried from attending, allowing him to stay in his parents’ home on the Stanford campus. That was a big change in posture after the judge threatened putting him in prison last month. The compromise is that SBF has to use a flip phone -- not a smartphone or anything with internet capabilities. Why? He’s been sending encrypted messages to influence the outcome of the trial.
The FTX bankruptcy— and the "missing" $8 billion or so dollars— may have been bad news for investors, drug cartels, money launderers and rogue nations who made use of FTX services, but lawyers and consultants have been happier than pigs in shit. February was a glorious month for them. FTX’s advisors charged $38 million for a month's of work. And the new CEO, John Ray III, charged $305,000 for the month.
The $100 million in stolen funds that Bankman-Fried used to bribe Congress is still pretty effective as some of the corrupt members he showered with the stolen loot is still working to make sure there will be no serious regulation of the industry. Obviously Congress has to do something… so there is a bipartisan scheme, led by House Financial Services chair Patrick McHenry, a recipient of massive FTX bribes, to pass a bullshit bill that looks like something, but isn’t much of anything. And Bankman-Fried’s favorite corrupt Democrat, Richie Torres of the Bronx, has conspired with McHenry to get the so-called Keep Innovation in America Act passed.
Yesterday, reporting for Punchbowl, Brendan Pedersen wrote that McHenry’s bill narrows the definition of a crypto "broker" for tax purposes. "It’s a tweak to crypto regulations first introduced and passed through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. When the infrastructure bill’s text became public in 2021, the crypto sector was shoved into its first major political fight— a fight they’d eventually lose. Advocates said at the time that the law’s treatment of digital assets would saddle non-financial firms— such as crypto miners and certain software providers— with ‘impossible-to-fulfill reporting requirements.’ The revived crypto bill from McHenry and Torres would address that and also go further by sharply limiting the federal government’s ability to define what a ‘digital asset’ is. The IIJA gave the Treasury Department broad discretion to define crypto, and the Keep Innovation in America Act would limit that power.”
McHenry, one of Congress’ most corrupt players, said in a statement that the bill would rectify “misguided policy and regulatory overreach [that] threatens to push this dynamic industry— and its potential benefits— overseas.” Pedersen added that Torres, “one of the crypto sector’s top Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, said it would provide ‘much-needed legal and regulatory clarity to help cement our continued place as the global leader in crypto technology and innovation.’ Corrupt slime-bag Tom Emmer (R-MN), a Bankman-Fried favorite and now— thanks to FTX stolen loot, is now the Majority Whip, is a co-sponsor.
Pedersen wrote that “We recommend treating this package as a litmus test for crypto’s political support in Congress. Passing these fairly modest changes would hand sector advocates a much needed policy win after months of financial collapse and an increasingly adversarial legal outlook.”