Democrat megadonor and supposed cryptocurrency maverick Sam Bankman-Fried was no stranger to Capitol Hill before he ran his company into the ground and allegedly defrauded customers out of billions of dollars. But according to new reporting from Bloomberg, SBF was also a repeated guest at the White House where he met with multiple top-level Biden administration staffers in an apparent attempt to influence the president's crypto policy and build more connections with the federal government.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that SBF "held at least four meetings with senior White House officials this year." The Biden reps in the meetings included one of the president's senior advisers, Steve Richetti, with whom SBF met on September 8.
Additional meetings, according to Bloomberg's reporting on White House visitor logs, took place on April 22 and May 12 and 13. SBF's brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, also participated in at last one other meeting with West Wing staff.
SBF's spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg, and the White House has not yet put out any official statement about the matter — but you can expect a question on the topic in a future press briefing once they return in the new year.
While the Biden administration didn't issue a formal statement about its meetings with Bankman-Fried, one official — anonymous as usual — told Bloomberg that the Bankman-Fried brothers White House meetings "focused on general discussion of the crypto industry and exchanges, as well as pandemic prevention related to the Foundation, Guarding Against Pandemics, run by Gabe Bankman-Fried."
Another anonymous West Wing official told Bloomberg that "politics was not discussed at the White House meetings."
Well, now that the White House is anonymously telling reporters that politics were definitely not a factor, that raises a few interesting questions. Did the meetings have anything to do with SBF being the biggest donor to Democrats in the 2022 midterms other than George Soros? And why was Sam's brother Gabe also included in at least one meeting with Sam in addition to having a solo meeting with White House officials? There are countless nonprofits focused on public health, so why was Gabe's given face time with senior Biden aides?
New: Sam Bankman-Fried attended at least four meetings at the White House this year, meeting top Biden aides like Ricchetti and Reed. The most recent was Sept. 8. They discussed crypto & pandemic prevention, per officials.https://t.co/dPk1qjM7Ga
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) December 29, 2022
The timing of the meetings is also interesting. The most recent between Biden officials and SBF was on September 8. That's less than one month before the November 2 leak of financial information that showed the very close ties between FTX and Alameda Research. By November 9, it was revealed that federal agencies were investigating FTX. On November 10, SBF announced that Alameda Research was shutting down and then, on November 11, FTX, Alameda, and a host of other connected entities filed for bankruptcy and SBF resigned from his position as CEO.
That is, senior Biden aides were meeting with SBF and consulting with him on crypto policy while he was seemingly cooking the books and allegedly committing fraud. A real great source of advice and guidance for the White House to be seeking input from. Is it surprising for for Biden admin to have poor judgement? No. Will they face any questions about their meetings with SBF? Maybe one or two. Will they learn from this? Probably not.