196 US politicians out of 535 senators received donations from Sam Bankman-Fried and other former crypto exchange executives
A new session of Congress has begun in the United States. CoinDesk journalists calculated that out of 535 newly elected senators, 196 people received money from Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). This is more than a third of the total.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, along with other top FTX executives, donated approximately $72 million to U.S. politicians and fundraising groups in the 2021-2022 election cycle.
The CoinDesk publication asked politicians how they plan to dispose of the money received. 73% of recipients did not respond at all, and of the 53 politicians who responded, the majority (64%) said they had donated or were about to donate funds to charities. There are those who are now negotiating with the Ministry of Justice on how best to proceed in this situation. They set aside the money until a final decision was made. The plans are to either transfer the funds received from the crypto exchange to charity, or send them to compensate the victims of FTX.
At the same time, the new management of FTX has its own view on these things. External managers believe that the transfer of payments to a third party will not protect these amounts from collection. In theory, lawyers auditing a crypto exchange could demand that charities return all proceeds.
