Commentary Yes, I watched the appalling scenes of Sam Bankman-Fried’s media tour. He repeatedly returns to the theme of his philanthropy: pandemic planning. What does this 30-year-old computer guy know about infectious disease? No more than Bill Gates did when he began his malanthropic crusade through the universities, journals, and nonprofits and imposed his lockdown-and-vaccinate…

As with many notorious villains, Sam Bankman-Fried is a complex and contradictory character. In the public eye, he has gone from quirky financial genius and selfless philanthropist to liar, con artist, and thief. But his former employees describe a more nuanced person that is neither angel nor villain. “Of all the things I’ve heard and…

Beto O’Rourke returned a $1 million donation to FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the Texas Democrat’s largest campaign contributor between July 1 to Sept. 29. O’Rourke, the failed Texas gubernatorial candidate who lost to Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, returned the contribution four days before the midterm election, his campaign told The Texas Tribune. Bankman-Fried…

Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder took to the podium Sunday night to defend his country’s securities regulators against “inaccurate allegations” by the U.S.-based legal team, led by veteran work-out attorney John Ray III, that has taken over management of FTX in bankruptcy, following the cryptocurrency exchange’s abrupt collapse in early November. “It is possible that…

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, had planned to become the biggest donor to the Democratic Party in 2024, a cycle in which he might have spent as much as $1 billion, according to investigative journalist Theodore Schleifer, writing for Puck News Wednesday, Nov. 23. The erstwhile billionaire filed in April, 2022, to incorporate…

Federal prosecutors from Manhattan investigated for months the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX in connection with a 1970 law designed to prevent money laundering, but it is unclear whether the investigation concluded prior to the firm’s recent collapse amid a liquidity crisis, according to Bloomberg Monday, citing anonymous sources. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern…

Commentary A Democrat who sits on the House Financial Services Committee hired the brother of the head of the bankrupt cryptocurrency company FTX, potentially raising ethical questions. Gabe Bankman-Fried, the younger brother of FTX CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried, went to work in January 2019 for Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). Casten, then a freshman congressman, was named that same…