Cryptocurrency-wunderkind-turned-convicted-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly seeking a pardon from the Trump administration.
As The New York Times (NYT) reported Friday (March 7), this effort — described in the article as a “long shot” — has included reaching out to D.C. lobbyists and consulting with Kory Langhofer, an Arizona lawyer who worked on Trump’s presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. Bankman-Fried has also recently conducted a jailhouse interview with former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson.
At one time considered one of the rising stars of the digital assets world, Bankman-Fried was found guilty in 2023 of masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud at his crypto exchange FTX. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and is appealing his conviction.
According to the NYT, Bankman-Fried’s allies have taken measures that seem designed to win favor with Trump in less noticeable ways. For example, Bankman-Fried recently co-wrote a Washington Post opinion piece in support of the president’s planned sovereign wealth fund.
In addition, his supporters think that they can argue there were flaws in Bankman-Fried’s prosecution in a way that will hit home for Trump, himself no stranger to criminal investigation.
“The prosecution told a story about FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried that is not correct,” Langhofer said. “If the public knew the full story, they would view it differently.”
In his interview, he told Carlson that — at the time of FTX’s collapse — he was closer to Republicans than Democrats, and expressed optimism that Trump would be good for the cryptocurrency sector.
“Changing the guard helps,” he said.
The guard certainly has changed since Trump took office, with federal regulators rolling back many of the prosecutions against crypto companies launched in the wake of FTX’s collapse.
And last week, Trump hosted a crypto summit at the White House, an event that — as PYMNTS wrote — celebrated the fact that Washington is taking a new approach to the crypto sector under the new administration.
As for Bankman-Fried, sources told the NYT that — so far — the effort to win a pardon hasn’t gained much traction. In fact, one aspect seems to have backfired. One source said that because the Carlson interview wasn’t cleared by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Bankman-Fried was placed in solitary confinement as punishment.
