But the administration loves frauds, so maybe if Bankman can come up with a bribe.
Src: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/geor...
> SBF claims he gave tens of millions in untraceable donations to Republicans
> Although federal election receipts show that Bankman-Fried donated almost exclusively to Democrats, he claimed on a November phone call with YouTuber Tiffany Fong that he donated an equal amount to Republicans and Democrats.
> “All my Republican donations were dark,” he said, referring to political donations that are not publicly disclosed in FEC filings. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the f—k out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
> Given that he donated nearly $40 million to Democrats in the 2022 election cycle—and he admitted to giving an equal amount to Republicans—his total political contributions may have actually been around $80 million.
https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...
He also secretly donated significant amounts of money to republicans (self-admitted), so all-in-all his contributions definitely skew center-right.
From the 1992 movie man bites dog.
[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-...
[2]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-...
[3]: https://apnews.com/article/nikola-trevor-milton-fraud-trump-...
[4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o
[5]: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/28/trump-pardon-bitmex-crypto-e...
Hasn't succeeded yet, probably because he doesn't have the money, also too publicly associated with the Democratic Party. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump does it in the end because his empathy seems to be reserved for high-profile scammers.
If he thinks accepting money from SBF will be good for him, he'll do it. If not, he won't. I suspect SBF is going to be left out in the cold, though, so Trump can say he's tough on white-collar crime, while pardoning the Binance guy and so many other rich fraudsters.
https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...
So it's been a few years now. Did people get their money in the end? That would presumably answer the question of whether they were stolen from. It wouldn't affect any decisions on crimes related to flouting regulations.
I would characterise robbing a bank, placing a bet and returning the funds as theft.
However if you entrusted me with $500 and I gambled and paid you back when you wanted the $500, I would not say that is theft. If I had promised not to gamble, then it would have been fraudulent.
In between placing a bet and returning the funds, the customer's funds were totally non-existent hence the loss to the user. That things later worked out after some years does not take away the misappropriation and that there was no actual money where it was meant to be at that moment, hence a fraud.
Was there ever a charge of theft in the legal sense filed in court?
Remember this.
And on and on. And on.
Dumping, swapping, bag holding, fee based investments that are crap. All legal.
Would you say that a misuse of funds with zero chance of the rightful owner losing their money is a less serious crime than a misuse of funds with a 50% or 100% chance of losing their money.
I think it is, and penalties should be proportionate. That is a principle that I hold independent to any of the specifics of this case.
No, because the crime is the same either way. The crime is "misuse of funds", full stop.
If recklessly using those funds is also a crime, then there should be an extra charge tacked on, which would presumably increase penalties on conviction.
Of course it was a pretty clear pattern of usage over time, not a one-time thing that could be explained as accidental.
Loss of freedom is ultimately what will reform a criminal, if reform is possible.
I don't believe that is correct. In fact there's pretty good research to suggest that custodial sentences inrcease recidivism. This does not really apply to the SBF case, but I shall elaborate for the general case.
There are far more burglars in their 20's than in their 50's. The predominant characteristic amongst people over the age of 50 being convicted of burglary is previous jail time for burglary.
Research has shown the single most reliable way to reform a criminal is to let them get older without going to jail, and to a lesser extent gaining a criminal record. People are far more often criminals by circumstance than by nature.
1. the person taking the money had no guarantee that the money, or some of it, would not be lost.
2. it wasn't their intention to give all or some of it back to its rightful owners.
3. the fact that some of it could repay some of the rightful owner's was often a matter of luck, not intent (there is some overlap between 1 and 3).
SBF hits all three of these. Your intent matters. At some point SBF intended by conscious acts to run and continue running a Ponzi scheme. He wasn't trying to bail himself out of the hole other than to the extent required to keep the Ponzi scheme going and enrich himself in the process.
So, respectfully, I disagree. May there be other cases that I agree with you on, depending on the particulars? Perhaps so. But not this one.
I disagree that this was shown in the SBF case. In fact, it seems much of the case was based on the fact that these points were not pertinent to the charges he faced. Which is also likely why his appeal failed. The argument that he was disallowed from making would have spoken to those issues. If it had have been relevant to the charges, he should have been allowed to make the argument.
If you want to become successful sooner or later you'd have to do the same .
As I realized this I am slowly but steadily abandoning the race for money and I am trying to approach it by finding the best deals for the stuff that I like as money saved is money earned and there is very little difference between experiencing a top 85 percentile thing and a top 99.999 percentile thing , but that last 15% man that is what the money exonential really goes crazy