Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF, the convicted founder of the fallen crypto exchange FTX, has claimed the Biden administration targeted him as he shifted his political donations to the Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP).
In a recent post shared on GETTR, he alleged that his arrest in 2022 was politically motivated and tied to his growing criticism of the administration’s crypto policies.
According to SBF, his political stance changed between 2020 and 2022 as he became frustrated with how regulators handled the crypto industry. “I was a centrist, and (privately) donated tens of millions to Republicans,” he wrote. “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.”
SEC messaging controversy
Besides SBF’s claims, questions over regulatory transparency have resurfaced. House Republicans have opened an investigation into the deletion of nearly a year’s worth of text messages from former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler.
The agency’s Office of Inspector General recently confirmed that the SEC’s IT office “implemented a poorly understood and automated policy” that wiped Gensler’s mobile device. The messages, spanning from October 2022 to September 2023, covered a period when the SEC pursued major enforcement actions against Binance and Coinbase.
SBF said Gensler “conveniently lost” the internal communications, echoing previous concerns that his arrest was timed to prevent his congressional testimony. The SEC and DOJ have not commented on his latest statements.
A continuing legal battle
Following his December 2022 arrest in the Bahamas, SBF was convicted in November 2023 on multiple fraud and conspiracy counts for stealing billions from FTX customers. He is serving a 25-year sentence at FCI Terminal Island while appealing his conviction. His defense now plans to argue that FTX remained solvent and could have repaid users, as highlighted by X handle FTX Historian.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s fresh claims add new fuel to the FTX story, putting a spotlight on how politics and crypto oversight collide. His words remind me that trust in both regulators and the system itself is still hanging by a thread.