Outrage is brewing on social media over the news that one of the charges against disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been dropped.
Bankman-Fried was charged in December with wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, AND campaign finance law violations. But as of July 27th, the charge for campaign finance violations has been nullified.
The reason why is a bit complicated and reportedly involves the fact that Bankman-Fried had been in the Bahamas when the charges against him were announced.
In a letter written this week to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, federal prosecutors explained that, basically, the Bahamas had only agreed to extradite him to the U.S. if the campaign finance violations charge was dropped.
“The Bahamas did not intend to extradite the defendant on the campaign contributions count. Accordingly, in keeping with its treaty obligations to the Bahamas, the Government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count,” the letter reads.
Huge money-in-politics news.
The Southern District of New York is dropping its federal prosecution of Sam Bankman-Fried on campaign-finance charges, per new letter from prosecutors.
“The Government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count.”… pic.twitter.com/lnJ25NcB6M
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) July 27, 2023
But critics are not happy with this excuse, especially considering that the prosecution of Bankman-Fried for campaign finance violations would have undoubtedly laid bare his deep ties to the Democrat Party and alleged ties to the Republican Party.
“Bankman-Fried donated $46.5 million to the Democrats in 2022, making him the party’s second-largest donor behind George Soros that year,” according to MarketWatch.
“Much of the money went to various political action committees, with more than half of his donations going to the Protect Our Future PAC, which advocated for pandemic preparedness,” the financial news website notes.
The campaign finance violations charge stemmed from the specific allegation that he’d made political donations in other peoples’ names.
“All of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried’s desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams reportedly said when the charges against him were announced.
“These contributions were disguised to look like they were coming from wealthy co-conspirators, when in fact the contributions were funded by Alameda Research with stolen customer money,” he added.
In other words, he donated other people’s money to primarily the Democrat Party, though he’s claimed he’d also secretly donated to Republicans as well.
“In an interview following the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried claimed he also gave about the same amount of money to Republicans, but did it through dark money channels,” MarketWatch notes.
With this in mind, one critic tweeted, “Get close with the Washington Uniparty and they will protect you every time.”
“White Privilege Alert…Sam Bankman Fried…who helped the Democrats launder $100M’s of dollars has had the charges against him dropped,” another critic added.
BREAKING: The Department of ‘Justice’ has dropped the campaign finance charge against crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried.
Get close with the Washington Uniparty and they will protect you every time.
Shortly after the collapse of FTX last December, Bankman-Fried was charged with… pic.twitter.com/ZmiX3u5FKy
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 27, 2023
See more reactions below:
And the elites wonder why we’re so pissed off we’d consider voting for a guy like Trump.
— Colorado Native 007 (@CONative007) July 27, 2023
Of course, most of those donations were made to mostly Democrats and Deep State establishment Republicans.
— D.A. Henke (@Arden0211) July 27, 2023
Not surprising the DOJ just said a big FU to the people the lost their money but they don’t care because the democrats got the donations.
— Dimitriy (@TheRussianGuy96) July 27, 2023
What a total joke. Were he a huge donor to Republicans, his sorry ass would’ve been in jail a LONG time ago!!! They don’t even hide their 2 tiered system anymore…
— Peter Zabroski (@PZabroski) July 27, 2023
Of course. After all, SBF donated big money to some Democrats. So the rules say we must drop the campaign finance charges against SBF. There’s nothing that can change that.
— HisWay (@NoWayHiWay1) July 27, 2023
If any one of us did 1% of the crimes that this guy, the Biden family, or government officials engaging in all sorts of corruption on a daily basis, we’d all be in jail for at least 30 years.
— Critical Based Theorist (@s_zumock) July 27, 2023
Notice what one Twitter user wrote: “They don’t even hide their 2 tiered system anymore….”
Allegations that a two-tiered justice system exists in America have been swirling ever since word broke last month that Hunter Biden had accepted a sweetheart plea agreement. The good news is that this agreement has since been vacated.
The even better news is that, even without the campaign finance violations charge, Bankman-Fried still faces decades in prison.
“In total, Mr. Bankman-Fried is now set to face seven charges at his trial in October, including accusations that he defrauded customers and lenders of FTX,” according to The New York Times.
“Prosecutors have argued that he orchestrated a sweeping fraud, siphoning billions of dollars that customers had deposited with FTX to finance campaign contributions, charitable donations and real estate purchases,” the Times notes.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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