He "donated" (in other countries it is called bribed) enough money to enough politicians to not get in any serious trouble, maybe a slap on the wrist is what he'll get
Do you think a Senator can call up the judge and demand a lenient sentence?
And why would the judge care?
Under influence - for sure.
Btw, "fun" fact - Theranos CEO was not convicted of defrauding patients or employees. She was only convicted of defrauding investors (many of whom were famous politicians like Kissinger and Shultz)
I’ll place my money on conviction and a substantial sentence.
And Capone was convicted of tax evasion. So what? Holmes got 11.5 years. Does that seem like there was some undue interference on her behalf? Because I would be pretty disappointed if that's the best sentence I could get.
To be fair, it was a jury that decided that.
So when you learn about that, it's easier to think that the justice branch is much much closer to the executive branch than what it seems.
Indeed (to steal wording from the Wikipedia article) if I had been in charge in France and really thought this was happening I'd have taken some hostages of my own ! They would have been arrested on drugs and sex charges, I'd have had the security services fabricating lots of juicy stuff etc etc etc.
Justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate.
If a judge is pleasing enough to the president (& senate), they can be appointed to the supreme court.
Certain individuals may be pursued more or less aggressively by the DOJ.
You got your Joe Arpaios who do their thing for years and years and declare that they won't co-operate with investigations, and wind up with a Trump pardon. And Jeffrey Epstein in the 2005-2008 years.
On the other hand you have your Snowdens, Assanges, Kim Dotcoms and Aaron Swartzes that the US will happily pursue indefinitely and across borders.
Although I also wouldn't throw a hissy fit until I got to bring my blackberry into scifs so that's neither here nor there.
It's pretty well known that if you're Steve Bannon or Scooter Libby or Paul Pogue you can get a pardon.
It's also pretty well known that if you're Brock Turner the judge can let you off with a slap on the wrist because he likes you.
I believe there have also been a number of cases in the US where cops have killed people in custody and gone unpunished for various reasons.
And there have been various controversies about, e.g. firing US attorneys who investigated one party's politicians and firing others for not investigating the other party's politicians.
And of course it's well known that the Supreme Court are political appointees with specific party loyalties.
With all that said it's very unlikely anyone's going to intervene in favour of Bankman-Fried - I'd wager he's too high-profile for an intervention to be swept under the rug, and and not enough of an insider for anyone to intervene anyway and take the heat.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/11/megadonor-no-more-s...
> FTX-linked donations last election cycle favored Democrats, with at least $44.6 million going to liberal candidates, causes and PACs, and at least $23.9 million going to Republicans. [1]
You know who isn't going to be going to prison forever? Ryan Salame. He's looking at giving up his Porche, and ten years maximum, probably less, given that he's co-operating.
[1] https://rollcall.com/2023/02/23/ftx-leaders-political-donati....
Though I do think Ryan Salame mainly donated to non-partisan crypto PACs, but quite a bit did go to Rs, including $400k to his girlfriend.
But yeah, the plea deals are ridiculously lax, but SBF will just get pardoned by a outgoing D president like they did Susan Rosenberg, so he's good too.
This is false.
At trial, the prosecutors introduced evidence that more than $10 million went to Republican candidates, including the GOP Senate Minority Leader. Another $50+ million went to dark money organizations favoring Republican policies. All told, SBF and FTX (at SBF's direction) made over $100+ million in political donations, spread evenly between the two parties.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-allies...
We will find out at the end of the trial what is ruled as valid evidence or not.
(your source does not link "The documents" they reference so noone can verify)
A jury does not generally review each piece of evidence to determine whether the evidence is "valid" or not.
This evidence was already introduced at trial (in support of the conspiracy charges, since the campaign financing charge was dropped back in August). This means that the judge already reviewed it and deemed it to be valid, admissible evidence. (That happens before a trial, not after it, though in some cases may happen during a trial with the jury excused from the courtroom.)
It's weird to blindly believe OpenSecrets, which also does not link to supporting documents, while disbelieving widely-reported news reporting that has been covered for the past year...without any refutation by the Republican beneficiaries of SBF's donations.
Open Secrets' data is just processed FEC data, you don't have to "believe" Open Secrets, you can verify the numbers yourself:
https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/data-tutor...
My point was we don't have the data you are referencing to verify it the same way.
Or do you??? (a CNBC article w/ no reference does not count)