Sam Bankman-Fried claims Biden administration targeted him over GOP donations

Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted founder of the collapsed FTX crypto exchange, claimed Wednesday that his arrest in 2022 was politically motivated by the Biden administration after he shifted his political donations toward Republicans.

In a post on GETTR, Bankman-Fried said he had moved from being center-left in 2020 to centrist in 2022 after witnessing the regulatory enforcement on crypto by then-Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden.

"I was a centrist, and (privately) donated tens of millions to Republicans," Bankman-Fried wrote in the post, seemingly published by a friend. "Weeks later, Biden's anti-crypto SEC/DOJ went after me. They had me arrested weeks before the crypto bill I was working on was set for a vote — and the night before I was set to testify before Congress."

House Republicans at the time raised suspicion on the timing of the arrest, stating it appeared designed "to prevent Sam Bankman-Fried from testifying" and demanded Gensler provide internal communications on the matter, according to Bankman-Fried. 

In his Wednesday post, Bankman-Fried revived this suspicion, noting that Gensler "conveniently lost" the relevant internal messages.

Last month, the Office of Inspector General, an independent office within the SEC, said the agency's IT office "implemented a poorly understood and automated policy that caused an enterprise wipe of Gensler's government-issued mobile device." Therefore, text messages between October 2022 and September 2023 were lost, the office said.

During that period, the agency launched other major enforcement actions against crypto firms including Coinbase and Binance. 

The Block has reached out to the SEC and the DOJ for comment on Bankman-Fried's claims.

Following his arrest in the Bahamas in December 2022, Bankman-Fried was convicted of multiple fraud and conspiracy counts in November 2023 for stealing billions of customer funds from FTX. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence and is appealing the conviction.

Bankman-Fried and his family have repeatedly claimed that the FTX co-founder was wrongfully convicted, seeking clemency from President Donald Trump, who has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road online black market.

The incarcerated FTX founder noted in another GETTR post: "I can't post directly; I dictate to a friend via approved BOP phone/email."