In short
- Sens. Rubén Gallego (D-AZ) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)—chairmen of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets—have filed a resolution opposing any presidential pardon or reform of Sam Bankman-Fried.
- The non-binding approach makes the founder of FTX an unrepentant hypocrite and rejects his claims that the impeachment was political persecution.
- This follows SBF’s request for clemency this month and comes despite President Trump’s refusal to grant clemency.
Two jailed senators are moving to put Congress on record against any mercy for Sam Bankman-Fried, while the jailed founder of FTX is pushing for a presidential pardon.
On Wednesday, Sens. Rubén Gallego (D-AZ) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)—the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets—made a decision declaring that a convicted crypto fraudster should not receive amnesty, commutation, or other federal clemency. “Lock him up,” Gallego said.
Bankman-Fried has shown no “lack of remorse” for his wrongdoing, Gallego added. Lummis, a leading crypto advocate, said that Bankman-Fried had had his day in court and was. “chasing the mercy he never got” instead of being held accountable.
“The SBF has extended its amnesty and Senator Lummis wants Fried to know that he and his colleagues think they are where they are,” a senator’s office spokesman said. Decrypt.
SBF and FTX fall
Bankman-Fried history to fall it happened after the fall of FTX in November 2022, with judges returning a one guilty verdict on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023, followed by a 25 year sentence and the $11 billion forfeiture ordered by Judge Lewis Kaplan in March 2024.
FTX customers alone lost more than $8 billion in what prosecutors have called among the largest financial frauds in US history. The to solve rejecting Bankman-Fried’s portrayal of the trial as politically motivated and asserting the integrity of the jury’s verdict.
Bankman-Fried issued an apology
The Senators intervention comes after the SBF he formally requested The Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney this month for “pardons upon completion of sentence,” a pending request. A few days earlier, the Second Circuit to be held his parole and conviction, making him ineligible for parole until 2044.
President Trump said he forbade mercy to Bankman-Fried, to tell them New York Times in January he had no ideas to give. Even so, the election shows a reluctance that the door could be reopened, Trump is among them were exempted from some crypto statistics including Silk Road’s Ross UlbrichtBitMEX’s Arthur Hayes and Ben Deloand Binance Changpeng Zhao.
Bankman-Fried spent time in prison to maintain her innocence and lobby for help. bipartisan criticizes alreadyplus from Lummis in February when X’s SBF account started to encourage cryptocurrency market-structure bill. Prediction markets still place the opportunity for forgiveness single digits.
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