Sam Bankman-Fried, the man at the epicenter of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange implosion, has been revealed to have funneled huge amounts of money to several Democratic candidates who ran in the recent midterm elections through his political action committee (PAC).
The 30-year-old, who may be extradited to the US from The Bahamas to be questioned following the loss of up to $2 billion of customer’s money, donated approximately $38 million to various candidates and PACs from 2021-2022, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
According to a Fox Business report, Bankman-Fried primarily donated to left-wing causes, and made the biggest contribution to the Protect Our Future PAC, a group founded in January that funded Democratic candidates in the midterms.
With the money they raised in the beginning of the year – mostly from Bankman-Fried – Protect Our Future made an initial investment of $10 million in Democratic primaries, reported Politico.
As of June, Bankman-Fried had contributed approximately $27 million to the PAC, which is 95 percent of the total $28.5 million raised.
The only other major contributor was Nishad Singh, another FTX executive and business partner of Bankman-Fried. He donated an additional $1 million the very same day as Bankman-Fried’s first contribution of $9 million in February.
While the PAC may seem to be bipartisan based on its website, it only supported Democratic candidates.
The largest donation from the group went to a candidate who ran for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District, Carrick Flynn. Despite receiving $10.5 million from Protect Our Future, Flynn was defeated in the Democratic primary by Andrea Salinas, who won the general election last week.
About a month before Election Day, Flynn touted his $2,900 donation to Salinas’ campaign on a “less than $45k” a year salary. According to the FEC, federal candidate committees can donate to other candidates’ campaigns, and don’t have to use their personal money to make donations of up to $2,000.
The FTX-funded PAC also donated $1.1 million to two other Democrats who lost their primaries, Michigan’s Adam Hollier and New York’s Josh Lafazan.
Over $1 million was funneled to Reps. Lucy McBath of Georgia and Shontel Brown of Ohio, and to Representative-elects Jasmine Crockett from Texas, Valerie Foushee from North Carolina, and California’s Robert Garcia.
Other large donation recipients who got between $200,000 and $972,000 include Illinois Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, as well as Representative-elects Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Sydney Kamlager of California, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Rob Menendez Jr. of New Jersey.
According to Fortune, “30-year-old Bankman-Fried has been a major force in Democratic politics, ranking as the party’s second-biggest individual donor in the 2021–2022 election cycle.”
Reporting from The Post Millennial.
