Sam Bankman-Fried, Seeking Pardon From Trump, Backs ‘Operation Epic Fury,’ but His Past as a Biden Donor Haunts Him

The backing of the war in Iran by the fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried suggests that the erstwhile billionaire is keeping an eye on the world outside of prison — and has not despaired of a pardon from President Trump. Support for the American and Israeli assault on the Islamic Republic of Iran surfaced on Wednesday morning from the X account “SBF,” which boasts one million followers. The posts are “SBF’s words” but posted “through a proxy,” according to the account’s biography. Mr. Bankman-Fried, who at one point was a major Democratic donor and candidate to be the world’s first trillionaire, writes that the “costs of striking Iran are real. But so is the nuclear threat.” Mr. Bankman-Fried reposts a Truth Social post from Mr. Trump that in turn links to, of all things, an Al-Jazeera article that asserts that “The US-Israeli Strategy Against Iran Is Working.” That piece contends that “every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.” Mr. Bankman-Fried calls that analysis an “excellent article.”The Al-Jazeera article’s author, Muhanad Seloom, lauds the “systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.” He adds that “war is never clean. But the strategy – the actual strategy, measured in degraded capabilities rather than cable news cycles – is working.” Mr. Bankman-Fried concurs, writing that “Iran is losing capacity faster than it can create chaos.”Mr. Bankman-Fried reckons that “we are systematically dismantling Iran’s war machine: missiles, drones, air defenses, navy, nuclear sites, defense industry, proxy networks, central command. In under 3 weeks, the supreme leader is dead, his successor wounded, and Iranian ballistic missile and drone launches are down 90%+.” Mr. Bankman-Fried is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island in the Los Angeles area. He was previously at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, where The New York Sun secured the first recorded audio interview with him behind bars.Mr. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years behind bars and ordered to pay some $11 billion in forfeiture following his conviction on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering following the implosion of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX and an associated trading form, Alameda Research. Mr. Bankman-Fried pleaded “not guilty” and has launched several appeals, arguing that his trial was marred by prejudice and prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s convictions, which were secured by federal prosecutors at the Southern District of New York, heavily relied on cooperation from his camarilla, many of whom received light sentences in exchange for turning on the FTX founder. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and employee, Caroline Ellison, was sentenced to two years. Another high-level employee, Gary Wang, received no prison time. Mr. Bankman-Fried alleges that the government jawboned witnesses and that the presiding trial judge, Lewis Kaplan, denied him the presumption of innocence. In November a panel of the Second United States Appeals Circuit heard those arguments for a retrial. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro — who also represents Harvey Weinstein, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Blake Lively’s adversary, Justin Baldoni — asserted that the “defense was cut off at the knees by the judge’s rulings.” The panel, though, appeared skeptical of granting a new trial.Mr. Bankman-Fried’s convictions, which are federal, are within the ambit of the pardon power granted to presidents. Mr. Trump told the New York Times in January that he is not planning on pardoning Mr. Bankman-Fried, who was in the 2020 election the biggest donor to President Biden’s campaign save Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He also claims that he donated millions to Republicans, though, in a more clandestine fashion.Mr. Trump has pardoned one of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s erstwhile rivals, Changpeng Zhao, the former chief executive officer of the crypto exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering. In November 2022, Mr. Zhao published a devastating tweet about FTX, announcing he was liquidating its FTX holdings “due to recent revelations that have come to light.” This triggered the run on FTX that resulted in some $6 billion in withdrawals and led to collapse and the avid attention of federal prosecutors. Mr. Bankman-Fried argues that there were always sufficient funds to pay back creditors, and that what ensued was purely a liquidity crisis. FTX’s investors have largely been made whole. Some of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s investment bets, like the one on Anthropic, have proven to be startlingly prescient.Supporters of Mr. Trump appear set against issuing a pardon to Mr. Bankman-Fried. Senator Bernie Moreno says in a statement that “the guy shouldn’t be pardoned. The guy should go to jail for a long, long time.” Another Republican, Congressman Mike Flood, says that “He crashed the car, man. He engaged in massive fraud. Wall Street’s not needing him back to fix any problems. He helped us identify a problem by committing a massive amount of fraud — and we rewarded him with a long stay in a federal prison.” Mr. Bankman-Fried blames “Biden’s lawfare machine” for his prosecutions. In his conversation with the Sun, Mr. Bankman-Fried accused the 46th president of “political censorship.” Earlier this month Mr. Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, published on her Substack a fragment of her son’s prison journal. She describes it as “equal parts a sociology of prison life, philosophical musings, and reflections on himself and the outside world he briefly walked largely in.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Seeking Pardon From Trump, Backs ‘Operation Epic Fury,’ but His Past as a Biden Donor Haunts Him

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