SBF cozies up to Republican Party amid clemency push

Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried has spoken out from prison about his political donations, citing a political shift following high-profile contributions during the 2020 United States elections.In an interview with The New York Sun, SBF said he gave money to the Democratic Party in the 2020 election to prevent the political faction from “becoming the party of Bernie Sanders” — a Democrat senator from Vermont famous for his socialist views.The former FTX executive briefly outlined his rightward political shift over the last several years. SBF told the interviewer:“I would say that I viewed myself at the time as sort of center-left. And that is not how I feel myself anymore. It is not how I came to view myself by 2022.”“The Biden administration was just incredibly destructive and difficult to work with, and frankly, the Republican Party was far more reasonable,” SBF continued. “I became really frustrated and disappointed with what I saw of the Biden admin and the Democratic Party.”Bankman-Fried reportedly donated roughly $40 million directly to political candidates and PACs in 2022 before FTX’s downfall, seeking to influence the US government’s policies on crypto. The comments come amid a clemency push by the former executive’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, to secure a pardon for their son from Republican President Donald Trump.SBF’s chances of a pardon are slimBankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on March 28, 2024, for his role in the collapse of the FTX exchange — a now-defunct centralized cryptocurrency trading platform.The “punishment must fit the seriousness of the crime, and this was a serious crime,” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said upon issuing the sentence.Judge Kaplan added that SBF was “evasive” and “hair-splitting” during the trial. “I have been doing this job for close to 30 years. I have never seen a performance like that,” Kaplan continued.According to William Livolsi, executive director of White Collar Support Group — an organization that advocates for balanced sentences for convicted individuals — SBF’s chances of obtaining a pardon are slim.The advocate said that the presidential pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht was a high-profile campaign promise made by President Trump during the 2024 election — a luxury that SBF does not have.Livolsi added that differences between the individual cases and the extremely harsh sentence imposed on Ulbricht also differentiate the two situations.