Politics

Beto Returns $1 Million Campaign Donation from Sam Bankman-Fried

By Joe Hyde, Nov 29, 2022
 

AUSTIN, TX — (via James Barragan at the Texas Tribune) Beto O’Rourke returned a $1 million donation from embattled cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried four days before Election Day, his campaign told The Texas Tribune this week.

Bankman-Fried founded FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was valued at $32 billion before collapsing abruptly in a matter of days earlier this month, setting off an industrywide panic. Many customers of the popular crypto platform may lose all or part of the money they invested.

In total, Bankman-Fried donated $40 million to Democrats, according to Open Secrets, while another FTX executive, Ryan Salame, donated $23 million to Republicans.

Chris Evans, a spokesperson for O’Rourke’s campaign, told the Texas Tribune the reimbursement of one of the largest checks to O’Rourke’s gubernatorial campaign was unrelated to the scandals linked to Bankman-Fried’s now flailing cryptocurrency exchange.

He added that the money, which was received on Oct. 11, was returned because the donation was unsolicited. Unlike other large donations, O’Rourke had not talked with Bankman-Fried prior to the donation, and the large sum took the campaign by surprise, Evans said.

Bankman-Fried was O’Rourke’s top donor during the fundraising cycle spanning from July 1 to Sept. 29, but even without his donation O’Rourke was a formidable fundraiser, coming in at around $77 million for his entire campaign. O’Rourke had at least three other seven-figure donors, including the Democratic megadonor George Soros.

FTX has been under scrutiny since September when Bloomberg reported how interconnected the company was with Alameda Research, a trading firm which Bankman-Fried also founded. On Nov. 2, two days before O’Rourke’s campaign said they gave the donation back, CoinDesk reported that much of Alameda’s assets were made up of a cryptocurrency token issued by FTX, its sister company. That report largely set off a run on FTX that culminated with its filing for bankruptcy on Nov. 11.

FTX is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice over whether it used billions of dollars in customer funds to prop up Alameda Research. The Texas State Securities Board is also looking into whether FTX illegally offered unregistered securities to Texans through its yield-bearing cryptocurrency accounts, the Tribune reported.

Aside from O’Rourke, a number of Texas congressional candidates, all Democrats, also received money from Bankman-Fried or his affiliates. According to the Tribune, they include:

Jasmine Crockett, an incoming Democratic freshman to the U.S. House received $2,900 from SBF's brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried. Crockett is replacing Dallas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson who also benefited from $1.4 million in spending from the Protect our Future super PAC, a political action committee that was mostly funded by Sam Bankman-Fried, the Tribune reported.

For more, see the Texas Tribune.

Related: SBF opens up to Axios about the fall of FTX. A good read.

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LOL, nothing like a republican to be constantly proven wrong.

All they have is to talk as much sh*t about the other side as they can, no policy, no platform, nothing. That's Republicans for you.

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Then there's Herschel Walker, who has repeatedly said he lives in Texas while he's running for Senator in Georgia.  Does that clearly obvious moron even know where he lives or where he's supposed to live?

For this imbecile to represent the Republican party in that race makes me feel sorry for those Republicans in Georgia with functioning brains.  It appears there aren't nearly enough of those.  Then we have MTG, but at least she's in the House and not the Senate.  She is nonetheless distressingly dangerous and clearly not sane.

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Proven wrong how? The source of the information is the Texas Tribune…hardly a bastion of conservative thought ;)

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Gregg Abbot was crying about Beto taking 1 million from the crypto guy. Saying that he should return it fully expecting him to not return it and so abbot could use it to his political advantage.

Then Beto give it all back. LOL.

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Beto is obviously smarter than he looks lol. Of course it took him until 4 days before the election to give the money back (assuming he actually did) after he already knew he was going to lose and lose big ;)

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He still one-upped Abbott and made him look even pettier than he usually does.

Sure, Beto was going to lose, BUT dems are gaining ground in red states and areas. So it is worth the fight for sure.

Republican did HORRIBLE in the midterms, worst midterms for the opposing party since, when? Probably ever since they were expecting a lot more. Republicans wont have a chance if they don't actually change their stance on things and get an actual platform. All they have right now is "dems bad", luckily for them there are people that still believe it, but they are getting older and older. There are some younger ones that support the republican party, sure, but it's less and less every year.

Something interesting to note. It looks as though if the pandemic never hit Republicans would have done better in the midterms. Why? Because much more people that lean right refused masks, vaccines, and therefor more of them died. Right around the numbers that would have tipped the scales in republicans favor in several key areas. Let that be a lesson to you. Too bad you had to learn it the hard way.

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Haha I would hardly call republicans taking control of the house doing “horrible”.

The rest of your verbal diarrhea not worth my time have a good day ;)

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Additionally…to claim that republicans have no platform is beyond ignorant. Although short on details, republicans released their agenda prior to the midterms guessing you must have missed it ;)

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The democrat agenda is clear as well. When asked what he was going to do once republicans take control of the house Biden said “nothing”…so much for “unifying the country” lol.

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"When asked what he was going to do once republicans take control of the house Biden said “nothing”"

See this is a perfect example of republicans taking things out of context and not telling the entire story.

What biden said was he was going to do "nothing" differently. Meaning he was still going to work on the things he has already been working on, like lowest unemployment, highest job growth, infrastructure plans, veteran health plans, helped end the pandemic, seems like when you are on a roll, you wanna keep doing what you are doing. OH, and the stock market is doing great right now!

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Oh yeah Biden’s on a roll alright lol. That’s precisely what I said…Biden refusing to change course despite democrats losing control of the House.

As for the stock market…heading into the midterms Biden’s record second worst to Carter. That’s according to CNN business…again not exactly a bastion of conservative thought ;)

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HA HA. Beatnic beto took all these fools money and lost miserably and will continue to loose miserably.

All you mouth breathing knuckle draggin libturds just keep pumping your money to beto(:(:(:

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Beatnic Beto? Did you even warm up before you tried that reach?

What an ass joke. Try harder. Here, I'll give you a few:

Betophile, Bado, Betno, BetHo, Beto O' Dork.

C'mon, man. Put your back into it.

Btw, "Big Daddy" makes you sound like a chomo.

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AH YES, a reply from a DTS brain dead woke snowflake(:(:(:

BTW, you sound like one of them there knuckle draggers(:(:(: 

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I have no political affiliations so miss me with that snowflake dur-dur-dur junk.

I just don't like you as a person.

Take a walk, pet a dog, get some kind of hobby. You should be embarrassed by the amount of time you spend on here.

If anyone who loved you actually respected you(doubtful), they would tell you to hang up your Keyboard Warrior dog tags and live out the rest of your bleak life in obscurity.

This is why your kids don't call you. Douche.

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Numerous states in the US have become less democratic over 2000–2018. The reason why: Republican control of state government. "Across measures and model specifications, the results are remarkably clear: Republican control of state government reduces democratic performance."

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/laboratories-of-democratic-backsliding/0742F08306EFDD8612539F089853E4FE

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Fascist huh? Interesting choice of words considering, under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, Congress is REQUIRED to convene a constitutional convention if two-thirds of the state legislatures call for one ;)

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Typical of the marxist left…describe a process outlined in the Constitution as “fascist” ;)

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Hmmmm, Fri, 12/02/2022 - 11:46

While also believing the Biden White House strong arming private companies to censor American citizens isn’t fascist….

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You know I think I will comment. Not really worried about you demo libs growing in ranks. Not only can leftist soyboys not figure out which gender they are, if they do happen to get lucky and find the wet spot the product of that unholy alliance is killed off for the sake of convenience.

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Let me help you out. We’re not a Democracy but a Constitutional Republic (of states)…meaning state legislatures are the main governing body the same as in blue states. Not always pretty, but “democracy” in it’s purest form!

Like I’ve said before, it’s amazing how truly ill informed you demo libs are ;)

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You mean people from different areas, from different socio-economic backgrounds, with different values (or in democrats’ case the lack thereof) etc. have different views?

Absolutely SHOCKING I say lol.

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Haha fascist! You mean like how the current administration claimed the Supreme Court shouldn’t be able to hear cases brought by red states challenging the constitutionality of Biden’s open door immigration policies?

Not to worry they’ll just do away with the filibuster and pack the SC like they’ve been talking about doing nothing “fascist” about that ;)

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