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Decoding the S.B.F. Political Conspiracy

The prosecution’s new narrative correctly ignores the coordination of political contributions in S.B.F. world and focuses instead on a more brazen fraud.

The allegation in the indictment doesn’t concern the fact that S.B.F. and his allies coordinated their political contributions—instead, the S.D.N.Y. describes something far more brazen.
The allegation in the indictment doesn’t concern the fact that S.B.F. and his allies coordinated their political contributions—instead, the S.D.N.Y. describes something far more brazen. Photo: Gotham/GC Images
Theodore Schleifer
February 23, 2023

On Thursday, four new charges were unsealed against Sam Bankman-Fried, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and securities fraud. The superseding indictment could add decades to a potential prison sentence if S.B.F. is convicted. In Washington, however, people following the FTX legal saga will be most interested in the fourteenth page of the 39-page document, which alleges in novelistic detail how S.B.F. and two co-conspirators absconded with customer funds to make hundreds of illegal political donations, totaling tens of millions of dollars.