WASHINGTON — A writer’s workshop in Alaska. Food banks in California. A charity that fights diabetes.
Lawmakers who accepted piles of cash from onetime wunderkind Samuel Bankman-Fried now can’t move fast enough to offload their contributions from the disgraced crypto mogul to anywhere else but their own campaign coffers.
Before his arrest in the Bahamas this week, Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was a prolific political donor to individual candidates — from local campaigns all the way up to President Joe Biden — as well as super PACs that can wield outsized influence in campaigns. But in a matter of days, Bankman-Fried — a proponent of “effective altruism” — became a pariah facing allegations of massive financial fraud and potentially decades in prison.
The Associated Press contacted more than four dozen current and incoming lawmakers who received campaign contributions from Bankman-Fried this election cycle — a group that included members of both political parties and chambers of Congress, but predominantly House Democrats. Many of the recipients of Bankman-Fried’s cash were quick to respond, stressing that they had already donated or plan to send the money to charity. Several also stressed that the lawmakers did not solicit the contributions from Bankman-Fried.
Recipients of Bankman-Fried’s campaign largesse included lawmakers at the most senior levels of House and Senate Democratic leadership. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the incoming leader of House Democrats, donated the contribution to the American Diabetes Association. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who will be the third-ranking House Democrat next year, donated his contributions from Bankman-Fried to local charities last month.
In the Senate, Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, will donate his contribution to an “appropriate charity,” a spokeswoman said. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who will be third in line to the presidency next year, will donate her cash to a local Washington state charity.