Offices of the two top Senate Ag leaders confirmed to the Washington Post they’d received campaign funds from disgraced crypto firm FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried–now under arrest in the Bahamas and facing extradition to the United States.
The Post reports, “Senators Debbie Stabenow and John Boozman…confirmed their offices had donated or would donate the money they received from Bankman-Fried to charity.”
Stabenow recently chaired an Ag Committee hearing on FTX’s collapse just two-weeks before Bankman-Fried’s arrest on eight criminal plus civil counts for mishandling billions (B) and conspiring to violate campaign finance laws.
Stabenow; “The crisis created by FTX further confirms the need for a whole-of-government approach to regulating this market. The risks of trading crypto have come into sharp focus in the past few weeks, but we have known about them for years.”
Yet, top Ag Republican John Boozman had this; “The sudden bankruptcy of FTX, a Bahama’s-based cryptocurrency exchange that, at its peak, was the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by volume, has been truly shocking. Public reports suggest a complete lack of risk management, conflicts of interest and misuse of funds.”
The Post reports Bankman-Fried’s arrest after the stunning collapse of FTX has forced Democrats and Republicans to “distance themselves from one of their chief benefactors” who gave tens of (M) millions to campaigns and party groups.
Boozman and Stabenow stressed the need for bipartisan reforms to empower the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the crypto industry.
But the paper reports the two had worked “hand-in-hand” with Bankman-Fried on legislation seen as “friendly to the industry.”
