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Comment by bluedevil2k | Hacker News Reader

They’re not impossible any more and with this getting so much press and the US government likely looking to make an example of SBF, look to get a very detailed trail of where all the $ went. I mean, do you really think, factoring in that he had no accountants and no compliance at all, that he somehow had some of the best money launderers and embezzlers in the world? I highly doubt it, it was probably as amateur as the rest of the company.

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> the US government likely looking to make an example of SBF.

Considering the silence from top officials, I don't think this is going to be true. Don't forget he donated ~$50M to the democrats for the mid-terms and was the second biggest dem donor.

Madoff was a Democratic mega-donor and he went to jail as well.

In the primaries, to House candidates, many of whom lost their primaries to other Democrats. So there's a fair amount of bad blood between SBF and the Dems that actually made it to the election.

And on top of that, the GOP won the House. What sort of quid pro quo are you expecting him to get from the losing party, most of whom he pissed off?

I wouldn't be so sure about that yet.

FTX was directly involved in the joint bi-partisan committee to regulate crypto. Heads will need to roll for this so that others can save face.

>From 1991 to 2008, Bernie and Ruth Madoff contributed about $240,000 to federal candidates, parties, and committees, including $25,000 a year from 2005 through 2008 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.[1]

The "Government access" portion of Madoff's Wikipedia page goes on to detail high-level government connections akin to what SBF had. There's historical precedence for them burning someone just like SBF.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff#Government_acces...

Do you have any familiarity with the mechanics of the American federal criminal Justice system? Unless SBF gets a pardon from Joe Biden (which he won’t), those donations won’t matter at all.

Once it's clear that no more donations from SBF are forthcoming, they won't hesitate to publicly burn him at the stake to get the virtue points with voters. "You knew what I was when you picked me up."

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