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Comment by tdehnel | Hacker News Reader

Donating to politicians can help with some things, but it's hard to see why judges, who he did not donate to, would be influenced.

Also, even if the politicians could help, they already have the money, and SBF can do nothing for them in the future, so they would have to help him out of some selfless sense of honor.

I see this argument a lot. FTX people donated almost the same amount(a bit less) to Republican politicians. Same mode of operation many big tech orgs use.

I’m talking about the person, SBF, not the company. You are conflating the two.

Most of his donations were to Democratic candidates. He was the 2nd biggest donor to the Democratic Party behind George Soros.

We will see if he’s prosecuted what the result is. I have made my prediction.

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-de...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/15/23460684/...

Just a theory, but I think that unless politicians feels he has future leverage, they're unlikely to be lenient (can't think of a more fairweather friend than a politician who you know because you gave them money) and actually may go harder on him because of this narrative which they feel they need to counter

They might just want him out of the news cycle. Just look how many stories tying FTX to democrats FOXNEWS already placed on their website. A counter-story would require that people listen, and that FN would report that story. They won't. So getting the story buried and forgotten might be the best play.

FTX exec Ryan Salame donated $23 million to Republicans. FTX buttered both sides of their bread and people in the dark keep wanting to make this a political issue, when it is a fraud issue. Sam donated 27 million to the Protect Our Future organization that supports candidates who take a long term view on policy planning and $10 million to Democrats, is the numbers I've seen.

I think when considering SBF's political donations, conflating SBF and FTX and FTX.us and Alameda Research's donations is correct.

It struck no nerve. People here just don't like drive-by partisan swipes. They're boring and intellectually lazy.

But is it mistaken?

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