Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of failed crypto trade FTX, claimed that his 2022 arrest was politically motivated after he shifted his political donations towards Republicans and fell out of favor with the Biden administration.
On Wednesday, he posted on microblogging website GETTR that he had moved from a center-left stance in 2020 to a extra centrist place in 2022, after observing aggressive crypto enforcement beneath SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the Justice Division.
“By 2022—having seen Gensler/Biden’s DOJ on crypto—I used to be a centrist, and (privately) donated tens of hundreds of thousands to Republicans,” he wrote.
gm @GETTRofficial https://t.co/GsY3bFkgKM
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) October 15, 2025
Bankman-Fried Claims Authorities Focused Him Earlier than Key Crypto Vote
He claimed that weeks later, the SEC and DOJ “went after me,” timing his arrest simply earlier than a crypto invoice he supported was due for a vote and solely a day earlier than he was scheduled to testify earlier than Congress.
On the time, Home Republicans alleged the timing appeared meant “to stop Sam Bankman-Fried from testifying,” and demanded that Gensler flip over inside communications.
In his publish, Bankman-Fried revived these suspicions, saying Gensler “conveniently misplaced” the related messages.
SEC Confirms Gensler’s Telephone Wipe Erased Almost A 12 months Of Texts
Final month, the SEC’s Workplace of Inspector Basic admitted that Gensler’s government-issued cellphone underwent an “enterprise wipe” that erased texts between Oct. 2022 and Sept. 2023. The workplace mentioned the cellphone stopped syncing to the company system in July 2023 and was flagged “inactive” for 62 days, regardless of functioning usually.
That deletion interval overlapped with different main SEC enforcement steps in opposition to crypto companies, alongside FTX’s collapse in Nov. 2022 and Bankman-Fried’s December arrest within the Bahamas.
Coinbase has since accused the SEC of deleting almost a 12 months of Gensler’s messages, calling for sanctions over what it described as “destruction of proof.”
Lawmakers Launch Inquiry Into SEC’s Dealing with Of Gensler’s Lacking Messages
Home Republicans have additionally launched an investigation into the deletion of almost a 12 months’s value of textual content messages from former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, citing issues about transparency, IT mismanagement, and compliance with federal record-keeping legal guidelines.
Bankman-Fried stays imprisoned at FCI Terminal Island following his conviction in one of many largest monetary fraud circumstances in historical past. Prosecutors mentioned he diverted billions in buyer funds to his hedge fund, Alameda Analysis, utilizing them for dangerous trades, actual property, and political donations.
As soon as hailed as a crypto prodigy and a significant political donor, Bankman-Fried now faces years behind bars whereas persevering with to insist his downfall was pushed as a lot by politics as by mismanagement.
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