[ [link removed] ]Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress
Sam Bankman-Fried was trying to avoid accountability for
fraud.
But today in the House Financial Services Committee hearing — in her
typical style — Alexandria laid out the facts.
[ [link removed] ]NY times: Sam Bankman-Fried Used ‘Old-Fashioned Embezzlement’
To catch you up: Samuel Bankman-Fried is the founder and former CEO of
FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that filed for bankruptcy last month.
Bankman-Fried faces eight criminal charges, including wire fraud, lying to
investors, and conspiring to defraud the U.S. by violating campaign
finance laws. He was scheduled to stand before Congress today for
questioning about the multi-billion dollar collapse of FTX, but was
arrested in the Bahamas last night.
The House Financial Services Committee held the hearing today without him.
Alexandria asked acting FTX CEO John J. Ray III about the timeline of
events — including the timing of Bankman-Fried’s arrest just before
congressional questioning, and a curious 25.5 hour period when Bahamian
FTX customers were able to withdraw their money from the sinking business.
Over the course of four hours, Ray described the downfall of FTX as a case
of “old-fashioned embezzlement.”
Federal prosecutors also said in a newly filed letter to the judge that
Bankman-Fried defrauded FTX customers “by misappropriating funds for his
personal use…including to make tens of millions of dollars of political
contributions,” and violated campaign finance laws, “by causing political
contributions to candidates and committees associated with both major
political parties to be made in the names of co-conspirators, when in fact
those contributions were funded by Alameda Research with misappropriated
customer funds.”^1
Let’s be clear: Bankman-Fried made fraudulent contributions to both major
political parties, he was coming for our entire system. He said himself in
recent interviews that he was a major Republican funder, and that he
relied on dark money methods for his GOP funding because he didn’t want
the media finding out. In fact, Bankman-Fried said he was secretly “the
third-biggest Republican donor” if you count dark money.^2
This is just the latest example of why our campaign finance laws are
broken and why Alexandria has routinely called on the Democratic party to
shift toward everyday, small-dollar, diverse sources of funding.^3
Unlike most politicians, Alexandria rejects all corporate money and relies
entirely on grassroots support, the vast majority being small-dollar
donations that average between $16-19. As she has said, “the influence
[dark money] has is absolutely atrocious.”
Alexandria also refuses to take meetings with lobbyists or curry favor
with billionaires. This is so she can legislate and operate independently
from our corrupting system of campaign finance and revolving-door
politics. Moments like today demonstrate why that’s so important.
[ [link removed] ]Progressive values keep Team AOC running ethically for the interests of
the people. Can you match our average contribution — $16, or whatever you
can — to our campaign to keep our small-dollar operation flowing strong?
[ [link removed] ]Contribute →
Our movement must continue to shine a light on dark money to get
corporate, corrupt interests out of politics once and for all.
In solidarity,
Team AOC
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1 - [ [link removed] ]New York Times
2 - [ [link removed] ]Salon
3 - [ [link removed] ]The Independent
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