FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Secretly Donated As Much Money To Republicans As To Democrats
By Benzinga
Reeling from scathing criticism over his massive donations to the Democrats, the disgraced co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX (CRYPTO: FTT) claimed he also made “dark donations” to the Republicans, which were not publicly known.
In a phone call with Tiffany Fong, a crypto investor-turned-whistleblower, Bankman-Fried also claimed most journalists are "secretly liberal" and he "didn't want to have that fight" as to why he tried to make these payments covertly.
Withdrawals For Residents Of The Bahamas
Asked to explain why he prioritized withdrawals in the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried said, “I gave [the Bahamian government] a one-day heads-up that we were going to do it. They didn't say yes or no. They didn't respond, and then we did it. The reason I did it was it was critical to the exchange being able to have a future.”
Also Read: FTX Hacker Transfers Bitcoin Worth $4.1M To This Cryptocurrency Exchange
“You do not want to be in a country with a lot of angry people in it and you do not want your company to be incorporated in a country with a lot of angry people in it,” he continued. “This was us trying to create a regulatory pathway forward for the exchange just to like kind of appease the citizens of the country that we’re currently in."
Moving Funds To Alameda
In response to a Reuters report that Bankman-Fried secretly moved customer funds to Alameda through a "back door," Bankman-Fried said he certainly didn't build the back door in there and he did not know exactly what the report was referring to.
Bankman-Fried said he couldn’t have built a back door since “I don’t even know how to code,” though this argument doesn't actually answer Reuters' main contention that he used a back door rather than created one.
Bankman-Fried A Motormouth?
When asked why he continued to talk when FTX collapsed like pack of cards, Bankman-Fried said, “at the end of the day, I’m starting to trust my gut on things like this.”
Photo: diy13 via Shutterstock
