FTX US Donated $1M to a Super-Pac Aligned with Mitch McConnell in October | Hacker News Reader

FTX US Donated $1M to a Super-Pac Aligned with Mitch McConnell in October

bloomberg.com

65 pointsquyleanh44 comments

Oh, come on.

Mr. Bankman-Fried was the No. 2 overall top donor to Democrats in the election cycle, only behind George Soros, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Salame was the No. 11 overall donor to Republicans.

And also look at the names of the candidates too, on both sides.

https://www.livemint.com/market/cryptocurrency/sam-bankman-f...

As a cliché independent, I can't imagine the media storm if the 2nd top donor to republicans during such an important election got all of that donation money by essentially defrauding millions of customers. I've only seen articles that cast them as "misguided whizz kids" at best and "just trying to do the right thing" at worst. They went for the throat with Elizabeth Holmes, why not now? It's arguably 100x clearer and easier too.

With the amounts involved, SBF would have been the fifth-largest donor on the republican side.

I think that just speaks volumes as to how much "big money" Dems have had on their side recently...

I think the connection between SBF and FTX with the Biden's government is too complicated so they cannot do it normally. Even the democrats biased medias go white-wash for him, direct people by something else.

Conservatism is the most proximate threat to American democracy. Do not be surprised if the media goes after the right first.

I was curious so I looked at the funding of many key (and lesser known) races on opensecrets.org, and the difference is stark

Democrats out-raised and out-spent their Republican opponents by a factor of 1.5-3x in the most competitive senate races; sometimes much higher. Examples:

Arizona Senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=AZS1 ($80m to $12m)

Florida Senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=FLS2 ($72m to $46m)

Ohio senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=OHS2 ($47m to $12m)

Pennsylvania senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=PAS1 ($56m to $40m)

Georgia senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=GAS2 ($98m to $58m)

There were several cases of republicans out-raising democrats significantly, where the republican was a well-known incumbent (Gaetz, Boebert, McCarthy). This was also the case for well-known incumbent democrats (Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer). But the balance of money was firmly on the D side for this election cycle. Do we know what races the stolen money ended up in?

Wow. Honestly shocking the difference in money raised/spent.

I bet if you polled the average person, they would guess the exact opposite.

FTX's Salame donated half as much as SBF donated to democrats to republicans, and I believe within a few million of SBF's if you include super PACs.

FTX gave more to Republicans than Dems.

> More consequentially, Emmer was the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans, this year. The NRCC’s associated super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, received $2.75 million from FTX in the 2022 cycle; $2 million from Salame in late September, and $750,000 from the company’s political action committee.

> That money helped House Republicans win the majority in 2022. Though FTX has been portrayed as a Democratic firm, thanks to the high profile of former co-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the company sprinkled around campaign donations fairly evenly, with a shade over 50 percent going directly to congressional Republicans and a shade under 50 percent to Democrats this cycle.

If SBF embezzled FTX customer funds to make his donations, then I’m not sure why FTX directly donating a smaller sum is significant.

Personally, I see it as a more general example of a broken campaign finance system. It’s independent of party.

1 million is cute.

FTX's Bankman-Fried spent around $37 million during the last election cycle, almost all of which went to boosting Democratic candidates and causes. That made him the party's second-largest donor

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

> FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and members of his team rose from relative obscurity in Washington to be among the biggest donors in U.S. politics, contributing more than $70 million to election campaigns in less than 18 months.

> Mr. Bankman-Fried personally gave $40 million to politicians and political-action committees ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, mostly to Democrats and liberal-leaning groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign donations. Ryan Salame, another top FTX executive, donated more than $23 million, mainly to Republicans and conservative groups.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-amon...

I'm not political, because all politicians are liars IMO. But let's not turn this into yet another partisan issue. Rich people give money to both sides, all the time, so that they win no matter who wins.

However, the attempts to reform and limit campaign financing have been very partisan

I don't know which side is doing this, other than I'm pretty sure it's the one with the lower budget. And if one day the parties are in the reversed position, they will both flip sides and be advocating for the opposite of today.

The Dems say there is election fraud if Reps win, and Reps say there is fraud if the Dems win. Both sides are so predictable on all issues: if it benefits them personally, they are for it. If it hurts them personally, they're not. Has nothing to do with us.

>The Dems say there is election fraud if Reps win

Source?

Recently, Stacy Abrams and Terry McAuliffe concerning the 2018 race:

“She would be the governor of Georgia today had the governor of Georgia not disenfranchised 1.4 million Georgia voters before the election. That’s what happened to Stacey Abrams. They took the votes away.”

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/26/politics/terry-mcauliffe-vote...

Thank you!

That's not an accusation of election fraud.

>Voter fraud, electoral fraud or vote rigging are intentional, illegal actions aimed at changing or influencing or forcing the results of an election - by either depressing or increasing the vote share for a particular candidate or choice.

https://www.polyas.com/election-glossary/election-fraud

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_t...

I thought his whole deal was “effective altruism” aka get rich then use the money to make the world better… mcconnell is not making the world even slightly better - he enabled trump for 4 years, and then turned on him after his coup attempt failed. Not to mention he undemocratically refused to confirm obama’s supreme court pick, which is bad enough on its own, but has also resulted in women across the US being forced by the government to bear children against their will.

None of that is a good look for someone claiming to be motivated by altruism

SBF more or less admitted in the leaked Twitter DMs that the “effective altruism” was just PR (surprising no one, I hope)

SBF doesn't represent effective altruism anymore than the hacker claiming "there's suspicious activity on your account" represents your bank.

Effective altruism was hijacked to provide cover for the rich party crowd. Same for many of those charities in Africa, unfortunately.

McConnell is a neocon protecting the swamp. He worked against Trump and for the swamp.

Anecdote that having been on elevators with McConnell, I suspect he was picked on during elementary school recess and spends his decades in DC giving payback.

> Donation came just days before FTX declared bankruptcy > Bankman-Fried became sixth largest donor in midterm elections

Why there is no investigation? Why he still can speak on NY Times event?

> Why there is no investigation?

There most certainly is. Stuff like this takes time though (see Elizabeth Holmes) and worse, SBF seems to be not on US soil at all so would need an extradition.

> Why he still can speak on NY Times event?

It'll be most interesting to see what he has to say now. I don't think someone committing illegal acts (currently or in the past) should be grounds for a full on ban for speaking in public. Worst case scenario (for him) he says something he shouldn't have, and further goes into the rabbit hole. Best case scenario for us, we get insights we didn't have before.

Also, banning people based on what's illegal would mean Edward Snowden couldn't do any public speeches anymore in US-based events. Is that what you really want?

>Also, banning people based on what's illegal

I think he shouldn't be speaking at an event after defrauding millions of people out of billions of dollars. Seems like a pretty easy decision. People have been barred from talking at college campuses for much less.

> speaking at an event after defrauding millions of people out of billions of dollars

Wouldn't it be useful even if people have done criminal acts to let them speak about what they have done? If not to hopefully prevent it in the future, to be able to understand the motivation behind it. Maybe I'm just morbidly curious, but I'd like to hear even out everyone, guilty of crime or not. Doesn't mean I'll take what they say to heart.

But without that view, I'm afraid we'll throw away people like Snowden, Mitnick, Manning and more, just because what they did was illegal in the eyes of law enforcement.

> People have been barred from talking at college campuses for much less.

Does that mean it's right?

>Wouldn't it be useful even if people have done criminal acts to let them speak about what they have done? If not to hopefully prevent it in the future, to be able to understand the motivation behind it.

Sure. I don't see why that has to be hosted by the NYT though. He could make a YouTube video at any time explaining all of that. The NYT talk was scheduled before all of this happened tho, so I don't think that was their original plan.

>But without that view, I'm afraid we'll throw away people like Snowden, Mitnick, Manning and more, just because what they did was illegal in the eyes of law enforcement.

I don't think we have to talk legal or illegal. He stole billions of dollars from his customers. There's 0 silver lining there.

>Does that mean it's right?

No, it just highlights the bias of institutions.

No, it's not what I want.

I think very simple. He did lost billions of thousands of people and there is no excuse, no apology, no compensation plan. The US media like WSJ still says good for him, NY Times invites hime to talk nonsense.

There are many evidences about he has private property, money... People has pointed out his untrustworthy but nothing happened. I don't understand. To be honest, I really don't understand what they're doing now in US. Both people and government...

The NYT invite was sent prior to the fraud information coming out.

Investigation after the handcuffs would be appropriate. And it would surprise me if the IRS is unable to find fraud in undeclared gifts like the reported $16M condo his parents somehow got in their names.

It's important to point out that lots of interests donate 51% one side, and 49% on the other in America. America has a real problem with political graft... Saying "only they do it!" plays into the silly game.

We should ditch anyone that takes contributions. Get a pool of qualified political leaders, draw from this at random. Enforce term limits. This crap has to stop.

https://archive.md/wcxYo

Why is the media working so hard to brunt criticism of SBF? Donor status aside, is there any other reason besides money and politics ???

The left embraced SBF and have some embarassment about the looting. If a poor black man stole funds like this, he would be locked up awaiting trial.

Here comes the spin!

Wheeeee!

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