White Home data not too long ago made public have revealed that disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried met with senior Biden administration officers within the White Home on 4 events over the course of 2022, together with a just-disclosed go to on September 9.
When pressed on the topic throughout a press convention on Tuesday, White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that every one conferences between White Home officers and the fallen crypto mogul centered totally on Bankman-Fried’s nonprofit pandemic preparedness initiatives. She additionally, nonetheless, acknowledged that the conversations might have additionally pertained to “basic info” relating to the cryptocurrency trade and crypto exchanges.
“The White Home frequently engages with officers from a variety of industries and sectors together with leaders in enterprise and labor and non-profits,” Jean-Pierre mentioned in response to a query from Bloomberg White Home correspondent Josh Wingrove.
Bankman-Fried met on a number of events with Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed, two of President Biden’s senior-most advisors. Each officers occupy places of work simply steps from the Oval Workplace, an indication of their standing within the administration.
All of Bankman-Fried’s conferences with Ricchetti and Reed passed off within the West Wing.
Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, additionally met with senior White Home officers twice in 2022.
Whereas a lot of the conferences passed off within the spring, data launched on the finish of December revealed that Bankman-Fried returned to the White Home for a fourth assembly in September, simply weeks earlier than the crypto mogul’s $32 billion empire collapsed in historic style.
Within the early fall, on the time of Bankman-Fried’s remaining go to to the White Home, the then-billionaire was lobbying lawmakers to go the Digital Commodities Shopper Safety Act (DCCPA), a framework for crypto regulation that, whereas doubtlessly devastating to some sectors of the crypto trade, would have handled centralized exchanges like FTX far more favorably.
Within the wake of FTX’s abrupt demise and Bankman-Fried’s arrest in December for eight felony expenses—together with conspiracy to commit fraud, cash laundering, and violation of federal marketing campaign finance legal guidelines—the invoice has since been placed on maintain.
Within the months previous Bankman-Fried’s downfall, the crypto government donated some $46.5 million to political causes, together with $5 million to a political motion committee (PAC) that fueled a nationwide pro-Biden advert blitz within the remaining weeks of the 2020 presidential election.
A number of politicians have since returned these donations or donated equal quantities to charity.
Press Secretary Jean-Pierre, nonetheless, has refused to remark relating to whether or not the President will return any donations made by Bankman-Fried, or thinks some other Democratic politicians ought to.
On Tuesday, Jean-Pierre doubled down on that refusal.
“I don’t have something to share,” she mentioned.