SBF Suggests Dems Didn’t ‘Save’ Him Because He Gave Money to Republicans Too

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced crypto founder who’s currently in prison serving a 25-year sentence for fraud, gave an interview to Tucker Carlson that was posted online Thursday where he talked about his interactions with Sean Diddy Combs, denied previous abuse of prescription drugs, and insisted his political contributions had hindered his ability to fight off charges.

In arguably the most interesting claim from the interview, Bankman-Fried, often known by his initials SBF, told Carlson that he believes the Democrats didn’t “save him” from prosecution because he also donated money to Republicans, something that didn’t really come out publicly until after his company FTX was imploding.

Carlson prefaced a question about the political donations by saying that “it’s pretty normal in business” for a donor to call anyone he’s donating to and ask for help.

“Did you call Schumer or any of the people you had supported and say, you know, hey, I need your help?” Carlson asked.

“I didn’t for multiple reasons,” Bankman-Fried replied. “One was, you know, I didn’t want to do something inappropriate.”

SBF went on to say he “probably” had a better relationship with Republicans than Democrats in Washington D.C. at that point, even if that was kind of a secret. SBF only made those contributions to Republicans public in a phone call from jail in 2022.

“At the end of the day, there’s a long story here, involves a law firm that took a pretty unusual and active role in the case, but before I even gave up control of FTX… before it was ever filed for bankruptcy, the DOJ had already made up its mind.”

SBF, who has served about two years of his 25-year sentence, also addressed issues like reports that he and others at FTX were often taking stimulants. The FTX founder denied he was abusing prescription drugs when Carlson asked him about it directly.

“You seem like you were just flying high on Adderall every time I saw you on TV. You don’t seem that way now. Were you?” Carlson asked.

“No, I wasn’t, but I was… my mind was racing because there were you know, billion things to keep track of,” Bankman-Fried said.

The disgraced crypto founder went on to suggest he just had a lot on his mind and was trying to keep an eye on developments with his company any time he seemed distracted during an interview.

“So maybe like the digital world is bad for us?” Carlson said. “Is that I mean, like, what’s your view of that? You’ve been taken away from your phone. So that’s kind of big.”

But SBF wasn’t ready to completely toss out all of tech. And he clearly was struggling without regular access to his devices.

“Yeah, but it is… I, I prefer having the digital world,” Bankman-Fried said.

The interview, which is available on Rumble and X, also includes insights into his life in prison and how things can change when you go from a billionaire to a prisoner.

SBF, who’s 32 years old, says he may not be released until he’s in his late 50s. But if he gets sentence reductions, it may be his late 40s, which brings viewers to ask the obvious question: Is this a bid to seek a pardon from President Trump? Who knows, but Trump did pardon the Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

There are no signs that Trump is ready to pardon SBF, and it would surely be unpopular with the president’s base, given the crypto founder’s history of donating to Democratic causes and the fact that the crypto community largely hates him. But weirder things have happened. And if Bankman-Fried can find a way to make himself sound useful to Trump, there’s a chance he could find himself on the outside sooner than he’d hoped.