SBF Claims His Arrest Was Politically Motivated

In a post he shared on GETTR, Bankman-Fried said his arrest, which happened just before a congressional hearing and crypto bill vote, was part of an “anti-crypto” agenda led by SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the DOJ. He also pointed to recently deleted SEC text messages as evidence of misconduct. 

SBF Claims Political Setup

Sam Bankman-Fried, the imprisoned founder of the defunct FTX exchange, reignited controversy by alleging that his 2022 arrest was politically motivated by the Biden administration. In a post that was shared on GETTR, Bankman-Fried claimed that after shifting his political donations from Democrats to Republicans in 2022, he became a target of regulatory enforcement from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

He said he moved from being “center-left” in 2020 to “centrist” in 2022 after witnessing what he described as “anti-crypto” actions under SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the DOJ. According to his account, he was arrested “weeks before the crypto bill I was working on was set for a vote — and the night before I was set to testify before Congress.” 

SBF’s post on GETTR

At the time, House Republicans questioned the timing of his arrest, and suggested it may have been an attempt to prevent his testimony. They also demanded that Gensler release internal communications related to the case. Bankman-Fried claimed those messages have since been “conveniently lost.” 

His statement was made after a recent report from the SEC’s Office of Inspector General, which confirmed that Gensler’s government-issued phone underwent an automated data wipe, which erased all text messages between October of 2022 and September of 2023 . Interestingly, this was a period when the SEC pursued high-profile enforcement actions against firms like Coinbase and Binance.

After his December 2022 arrest in the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried was extradited to the United States and convicted in November 2023 on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy for misappropriating billions in FTX customer funds. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence while appealing his conviction.

Bankman-Fried and his family continue to maintain his innocence and have sought clemency from President Donald Trump, who recently pardoned Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht.