The bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX claims it is considering taking legal action to recoup all payments and contributions made by its affiliated companies and former employees, including the millions donated to politics by Sam Bankman-Fried, who served as FTX’s former CEO. The exchange warned anybody who accepted payments from FTX or its former officials that it intends to recoup any money lost, even if it was donated to a good cause.
In a press release released recently, FTX stated that it had already been approached by several receivers of donations or other payments made by, or at the instruction of, Sam Bankman-Fried or other executives and that these companies had requested directions for the return of such monies.
Countering bankruptcy
Three well-known Democratic groups only last week promised to repay more than $1 million in political contributions made by Bankman-Fried on December 16 in response to his arrest and indictment.
A White House press secretary was asked on December 13 if the Biden administration would refund the $5.2 million in political contributions that Bankman-Fried had previously made. Still, at the time, she chose not to respond.
In a recent statement, FTX urged recipients of monies to make arrangements for the return of such payments, threatening that if they weren’t freely returned, it would file a lawsuit to recover the sums with interest.
Legal experts have forewarned that up to $73 million in political payments made by FTX may be recovered to satisfy the rumored one million creditors who may be owed anywhere between $10 billion and $50 billion as part of the company’s bankruptcy process whose hearing recently happened.
FTX donations are being thrown to charity as a detachment scheme
To separate themselves from the exchange and its operator, some members of the U.S. Congress who received political donations from FTX reportedly gave the money to charity. Members of Congress, including Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House, and Dick Durbin, the Senate Democratic whip, are said to have contributed funds obtained through FTX to different charities.
The Salvation Army got $11,600 from Republican Senator John Hoeven from Bankman-Fried and Salame. But FTX asserted that these philanthropic offloads wouldn’t be sufficient to prevent it from pursuing the monies.
With $36.6 million transferred to Democratic Party candidates for the 2022 midterm elections, Bankman-Fried was the second-largest donor. He also contributed $5.2 million, making him the second-largest “CEO-contributor” to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign in the United States.
In an interview with cryptocurrency YouTuber Tiffany Fong back in November, the CEO of FTX stated that he had “donated about the same to both parties” but that his contributions to Republicans were “dark.”
