White House Officials have claimed that the meetings between FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and the Biden Administration were held about the pandemic.
Meetings between SBF and Biden administration
Earlier, after the failure of his cryptocurrency enterprise and his detention in the Bahamas this year, cryptocurrency magnate Sam Bankman-Fried met with four officials from the Biden government. Scrutiny has emerged inside the cryptocurrency community as an outcome of these meetings. For example, A Twitter user asks SBF to express his ideas on the topics conversed with the White House aides.
After these gatherings came to light, the crypto community suspected the objective and plan, if there was any for these continuous visits and meetings with key officials. Was there any backend lobbying going on? Did the officials know or had any notion about the FTX’s fraud? There are various assumptions and hearsay in the community.
Looking at the logs, it becomes evident that SBF had sessions at the White House four times before the midterm elections in 2022. Some leaders have been accused of receiving funds from Bankman-Fried, although they are willing to return the money. People demand an explanation from the Biden administration as to why they have had frequent meetings with fraud accused.
Some reports suggest that the discussions during this were specifically focused on the crypto industry, exchanges, and pandemic prevention and could also be on the crypto bill rather than politics.
Although Bankman-Fried lived in the Bahamas, his frequent visits to Washington, pushing and influencing authorities over crypto policy and regulations, and making strong and valuable connections tells a different side of the FTX-saga. He is also accused of redirecting regulators toward DeFi platforms, such as MakerDAO, of deviating them from centralized exchanges.
What White House claimed?
When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was questioned about the incident on Tuesday then they insisted that all meetings between White House officials and the fallen crypto mogul concentrated primarily on Bankman-Fried’s nonprofit pandemic preparedness initiatives. She also, however, stated that the discussions may have also pertained to “general information” regarding the cryptocurrency industry and crypto exchanges.
“The White House regularly engages with officials from a range of industries and sectors including leaders in business and labor and non-profits,” Jean-Pierre said in response to a question at the press conference.
In the early fall, at the time of Bankman-Fried’s final visit to the White House, the then-billionaire was lobbying lawmakers to pass the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA), a framework for crypto regulation that, while potentially devastating to some sectors of the crypto industry, would have treated centralized exchanges like FTX much more favorably.
In the wake of FTX’s abrupt demise and Bankman-Fried’s arrest in December for eight criminal charges—including conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and violation of federal campaign finance laws—the bill has since been put on hold.
