Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, reignited controversy by claiming his 2022 arrest was orchestrated by the Biden administration as retaliation for secretly donating millions to Republicans.
Bankman-Fried Alleges Biden Administration Tried to Silence Him
In a post published Wednesday on GETTR, Bankman-Fried said he shifted from being center-left in 2020 to centrist in 2022 after observing what he described as aggressive enforcement on the cryptocurrency industry by former SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the Justice Department.
"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."
House Republicans at the time questioned the timing of his December 2022 arrest, calling it an attempt to prevent his congressional testimony.
They demanded Gensler turn over internal communications related to the matter, according to Bankman-Fried.
SEC Confirms Gensler's Phone Wipe Erased Nearly a Year of Texts
Bankman-Fried renewed those allegations this week, pointing to revelations that Gensler's government-issued phone had undergone an "enterprise wipe" that deleted text messages from October 2022 to September 2023.
The Office of Inspector General within the SEC confirmed last month that an automated IT policy caused the deletion after the device stopped syncing to the agency's system.
The period of lost communications coincided with the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried's arrest, and several major SEC enforcement actions against crypto firms, including Coinbase and Binance.
Coinbase later accused the SEC of destroying potential evidence, calling the wipe "a failure of federal record-keeping obligations."
Congress Probes Missing Records Amid Crypto Enforcement Firestorm
Lawmakers have since opened an inquiry into how the SEC handled the deletion of Gensler's messages, citing transparency and compliance concerns.
The investigation seeks to determine whether any records relevant to crypto enforcement or the FTX collapse were improperly lost.
Bankman-Fried, 33, remains incarcerated at FCI Terminal Island, serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted in 2023 of multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Prosecutors said he misappropriated billions in customer funds through Alameda Research for personal use, risky trading, and political contributions.
Once considered a leading figure in the digital asset sector, Bankman-Fried continues to maintain his innocence and has sought clemency current President Donald Trump, who previously pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road.
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