When the Bahamian Chief Magistrate threw Bankman-Fried into Fox Hill prison without bail until Feb 28, I knew it would be just a matter of days before he waived any resistance to extradition. Now let’s see if he gets suicided or just old fashioned Lee Harvey Oswalded. The media has been very tepid about connecting the bribery dots between FTX and prominent politicians. Almost none of the stories about him, for example, mention that he was Biden’s second biggest individual campaign donor in 2020.
In today’s blockbuster article about Long Island Congressman-elect George Santos’ tsunami of corruption, there was not even a whisper that FTX spent at least half a million dollars getting Santos elected after their preferred corrupt conservative, Josh Lafazan (D), failed spectacularly in the primary. It’s almost as though the political and investigative journalists are just too lazy to dig into the campaign reports and track what looks like about $100 million of stolen funds that flowed from FTX to U.S. politicians.
Even reporting on the Blockchain-8 members— Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), GOP Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), Darren Soto (New Dem-FL), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and now MAGA Senator Ted Budd (R-NC)— tends to never explore the relationship between the contributions from FTX and the now-infamous but under-reported letter from the 8 of them to SEC chair Gary Gensler warning him away from trying to regulate FTX and similar crypto-ponzi schemes. I keep writing about it and members of Congress keep sending me notes like this
The research you are doing is far better than any other journalist. Really 👏🏽 proud of you! But of course not surprised
…but the mainstream media… not interested. You following the story? Did you know that career-long pillar of corruption Sean Casten (D-IL) hired SBF’s brother, Gabe, after SBF’s mamma, Barbara, directed her anti-progressive Mind the GAP PAC members to funnel $500,000 into Casten’s campaign? There are stories that need to be told about all $100 million dollars SBF used to further corrupt the already grievously corrupt American political system. Instead, journalists talk about how the bribe-takers are graciously donating their $2,900 direct contributions from Bankman-Fried and the other crooked FTX executives to charity… often without even mentioning that they’re not doing anything about the $1,000,000 contributions the same FTX executives used to bolster their campaigns.
The NY Times story this evening listed 4 reporters. Did even one of them think about doing some journalism? The Times could have used a high school student instead of the 4 reporters and gotten as thorough a story. “Mr. Bankman-Fried is facing fraud charges in the United States related to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, which was based in the Bahamas.” What a scoop! “After being arrested at his his luxury apartment complex last week, Mr. Bankman-Fried initially indicated that he would challenge the extradition. But he later had a change of heart, a person briefed on the matter said over the weekend, and was prepared to return to the United States to be arraigned on a criminal indictment.” The scoops just never stop!!
The closest the 4 gumshoes came to mentioning the forbidden word, b-r-i-b-e-r-y was “He has been accused of using billions of dollars in customer deposits to finance a cryptocurrency trading firm he controlled, make lavish real estate purchases, invest in other companies and donate funds to politicians.” Not very close. But at least they reported that SBF will be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, not at the one in Manhattan where they suicided Jeffrey Epstein before he could talk about the politicians he did business with.
Yesterday CoinDesk broke another little piece of the SBF story: Alameda Research, SBF’s hedge fund, invested $400 million into a company called Modulo Capital, which no one had ever heard of but was operated out of the same luxury Bahamian condominium community where the FTX executives all lived. Turns out “it’s a multi-strategy hedge fund founded early this year by two former Jane Street traders and one developer… Jane Street is a New York-based proprietary trading firm where Bankman-Fried and [Caroline] Ellison worked prior to making it big in the crypto industry. Bankman-Fried was known to hire former Jane Street employees as executives or employees, including former FTX US President Brett Harrison… Modulo traded crypto as well as traditional financial assets, two people familiar with the matter said. Modulo approached several traditional financial institutions for funding before taking on Alameda as its sole investor. One person told them that “It didn’t strike me as that crazy. Sam liked to throw money at things that were positive [expected value] and ex-Jane Street people seem relatively positive EV. It was better than some of the trash Alameda was throwing money at.” The investments on the Alameda spreadsheet “led to shocking revelations about how far Bankman-Fried’s ties stretched, including speculation over whether or not he improperly used his money to buy influence or enrich associates.”
Associates including his two crooked parents. We already saw how his mother's anti-progressive scam PAC-- from which she suddenly resigned last week-- got a flat million from FTX and then used over 80% to pay salaries and nothing for candidates. And she's an attorney so she can't plead ignorance of the laws governing PACs and contributions. But the newest revelations (link) go even further into the fact that they took stolen funds from SBF and a $16.4 million vacation pad in the Bahamas.
