Sam Bankman-Fried Goes on the Offensive

On September 23, for the archetypal clip successful much than six months, an X relationship belonging to disgraced FTX laminitis Sam Bankman-Fried published a post. It simply read, “gm”—internet slang for “good morning.” The relationship has been posting consistently since.

Bankman-Fried—known wide arsenic SBF—is presently serving a 25-year situation condemnation successful California. In November 2023, helium was recovered blameworthy of 7 counts of fraud and conspiracy by a assemblage successful the Southern District of New York implicit his relation successful the illness of the crypto speech FTX.

Immediately aft his sentencing, Bankman-Fried signaled his volition to appeal. In spring, helium spoke to a fistful of reporters from prison. But otherwise, helium has mostly receded from nationalist view. Distracted by the accomplishment of US bitcoin exchange-traded funds, a memecoin goldrush, speech of nationalist bitcoin reserves, and the imaginable of an casual thrust nether US president Donald Trump, the crypto manufacture moved connected too.

However, since September, Bankman-Fried’s X relationship has been causing a stir. (Though Bankman-Fried does not person entree to the net successful prison, a person is supposedly posting connected his behalf.) The posts lob disapproval astatine the administrators of the FTX bankruptcy property and absorption connected alleged misconceptions astir the information of FTX’s finances erstwhile it fell; they assertion that the wealth was ne'er missing, lone stuck successful illiquid assets. From prison, Bankman-Fried has besides been sitting for interviews with media outlet Mother Jones, published successful October, during which helium mostly promoted the aforesaid perspective.

His mother, the ineligible prof Barbara Fried, precocious launched a Substack. Her archetypal and lone post, published successful precocious October, is simply a 65-page treatise entitled “The Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried,” successful which she makes the lawsuit that her lad neither committed a fraud nor received a just trial.

(Bankman-Fried’s representatives confirmed that Barbara Fried authored the Substack paper; they said they had nary accusation astir the X posts. They did not respond to a further petition for comment.)

Bankman-Fried’s reemergence appears to bespeak a two-pronged attack to securing his merchandise from prison. In the courts, Bankman-Fried is pursuing a ceremonial appeal; elsewhere, helium is appealing to nationalist sympathy.

The prevailing sentiment towards Bankman-Fried volition person nary bearing connected the entreaty case, erstwhile prosecutors claim. But it could power his reported run to unafraid a statesmanlike pardon from Trump, who has absolved assorted crypto figureheads since returning to the White House successful January.

“It’s a PR campaign, obviously,” claims Joshua Naftalis, a erstwhile prosecutor, present a spouse astatine instrumentality steadfast Pallas Partners. “It’s a nary chromatic near unturned strategy.”

To date, Bankman-Fried has not filed a ceremonial pardon application, a White House spokesperson tells WIRED. “We bash not sermon speculation astir delicate issues, specified arsenic pardons, on-record,” the spokesperson says.

Bankman-Fried’s entreaty lawsuit hinges connected the assertion that the proceedings assemblage “was lone allowed to spot fractional the picture,” due to the fact that of rulings by the judge, Lewis Kaplan, that blocked the defence from introducing grounds that allegedly would person helped to undercut the prosecution’s case.

“At each turn, the justice enactment his thumb connected the scale,” Bankman-Fried’s counsel wrote successful an appellate little successful January. “The effect was a one-sided trial, wherever the territory tribunal allowed the authorities to contiguous damning mendacious information, concealing contrary accusation from the jury, erroneously instructed the assemblage astir the law, and efficaciously directed a blameworthy verdict.”

On November 4, 1 of Bankman-Fried’s lawyers, Alexandra Shapiro—who is simultaneously handling the entreaty cases of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and entrepreneur Charlie Javice—presented those arguments to a sheet of judges astatine the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges reportedly appeared skeptical of the thought that Bankman-Fried did not person a just trial. “It astir seems similar you’re spending much ink connected Judge Kaplan than connected the merits,” 1 of them told Shapiro.

“I’m definite they didn’t instrumentality lightly the imaginable of criticizing Kaplan’s workout of discretion,” says Daniel Richman, a instrumentality prof astatine Columbia University, who antecedently served arsenic a national prosecutor. “But I deliberation they made the nonrecreational judgement that that was 1 of the fewer roads worthy taking.”

Both Naftalis and Richman caution against trying to divine the result of an entreaty based connected comments made by judges astatine oral arguments. However, the likelihood of a transgression entreaty succeeding are low, successful general—somewhere betwixt 5 and 10 percent. And Bankman-Fried’s circumstantial arguments, concerning matters of judicial discretion, are peculiarly hard to land.

“I’d beryllium amazed if it was overturned,” says Christopher LaVigne, a spouse astatine instrumentality steadfast Withers.

The tribunal could people its determination astatine immoderate moment. After oral arguments, judges tin instrumentality anyplace from a period to aggregate years to instrumentality a decision, erstwhile prosecutors say.

At trial, a witnesser testified that Bankman-Fried said he’d hazard the demolition of the satellite connected a coin flip, if the 2nd enactment was that humanity would go doubly arsenic good off. It’s nary astonishment that helium appears to beryllium hedging his bets.

Since returning to the White House successful January, Trump has pardoned a big of crypto figureheads convicted of achromatic collar offenses, including Changpeng Zhao, the multibillionaire laminitis of Binance. Trump told reporters that helium had wiped Zhao’s transgression grounds connected the proposal of “very bully people,” who had told him that the Binance laminitis was victimized by the crypto-hostile Biden medication and hadn’t committed a crime. (In 2023, Zhao pled blameworthy to failing to support an effectual wealth laundering programme astatine Binance, which is simply a crime.)

Bankman-Fried’s household ramped up efforts to lobby for a pardon successful the spring, according to The New York Times. His campy reportedly believes that Trump, who has repeatedly said helium considers himself a unfortunate of lawfare, could beryllium sympathetic to the thought that Bankman-Fried has been miscast by prosecutors arsenic an arch criminal.

The caller posts to Bankman-Fried’s X account, his interviews with Mother Jones, and Fried’s Substack station each enactment that proposition. They support Bankman-Fried’s innocence and displacement the blasted for FTX’s illness and the immense losses incurred by customers onto allegedly avaricious ineligible professionals, who stood to payment financially from a premature bankruptcy filing.

“The nonrecreational fees were reviewed by an autarkic examiner and approved by the court,” says Maggie Carangelo, a spokesperson for the FTX estate.

In that regard, successful an improbable twist, Bankman-Fried’s publicity onslaught aligns him with a radical of erstwhile FTX customers—the victims of the crimes helium was recovered to person committed—who person railed against the strategy pursued by the administrators of the FTX estate, which they assertion has resulted successful a lesser instrumentality for creditors.

(“The FTX property managed its Chapter 11 lawsuit successful a transparent, nationalist process that was supervised by the US bankruptcy court, reviewed by an autarkic examiner, and had the afloat enactment of the authoritative creditors committee,” says Carangelo. “Its program of reorganization received the support of much than 95 percent of creditors who submitted votes, representing 99 percent of voted claims by value.”)

“He’s inactive a criminal,” says Sunil Kavuri, a creditor who mislaid $2 cardinal to the illness of FTX and delivered a connection condemning Bankman-Fried astatine his sentencing. “It’s precise casual to propulsion blasted onto idiosyncratic else, but helium got america into this mess.”

The statement that FTX was solvent and power of the institution was wrested from Bankman-Fried by lawyers present representing the bankruptcy property is irrelevant to his ineligible appeal, claims Richman. However, if those claims ringing existent astatine the White House, it mightiness not matter. “It depends connected the grade to which 1 thinks Trump’s pardoning process has immoderate transportation to the merits of cases,” claims Richman.

Either way, Bankman-Fried’s maneuvring was foreshadowed successful a tribunal filing successful March 2024, successful which prosecutors called for a lengthy situation sentence. The filing pointed to a papers compiled by Bankman-Fried instantly aft FTX filed for bankruptcy, successful which helium cooked up antithetic strategies for repairing his nationalist image. The 3rd enactment was to, “go connected Tucker Carlsen, travel retired arsenic enactment [sic].”

In aboriginal 2025, from prison, Bankman-Fried sat for that interrogation with Carlson, a long-time Trump ally. “I don’t deliberation I was a criminal,” helium said.