About That Time SBF Accidentally Gave Beto O'Rourke $1 Million In Stolen Customer Funds...
On Monday, former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh testified that FTX had used stolen customer money from Alameda Research to make political donations, even after learning it owed $13 billion to customers. In short, Sam Bankman-Fried was using customer funds to make political donations to Democrats, according to Singh's testimony.
One of those Democrats was failed Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke, who in November of last year reported returning a $1 million donation from SBF just four days before the November election because he was 'uncomfortable receiving such a large, unsolicited donation.'
In truth, the adderall-addicted SBF (or one of his employees) fat-fingered what was supposed to be a $100,000 donation, and instead ended up being $1 million.
In January, the Washington Free Beacon reported that O'Rourke kept the $100,000.
As journalist Molly White (@molly0xFFF), who has provided amazing SBF trial coverage, noted on Tuesday via "X," they FTX was able to get $900,000 back "through the application of social, political, and legal pressure," according to SBF adviser Keenan Lantz, a top executive at "Guarding Against Pandemics" who helped handle paperwork for political donations and other operational matters.
"They'll hang onto it until 11/4 - at which point the refund won't be reported until January," Lantz added.
...which brings up an interesting question posed by Twitter user Matt Beebe, who noted that O'Rourke's fraud - secretly agreeing to hold the funds until November 4, allowed them to lie about how much money the campaign had raised headed into the election.
Note that O'Rourke bragged about raising $25.18 million in the latest period vs. Greg Abbott (R), who had raised 'nearly $25 million.'
this is actually a pretty clear violation of Texas campaign rules... https://t.co/fVO3QShaZw
— Matt Beebe (@TheMattBeebe) October 18, 2023
Don’t you hate it when you send a leftist candidate $100K, in stolen funds, & you are tired from your Adderall binges. You added a 0, by mistake, (typo), & have to go through so much work to get $900K of the stolen money, back. 😬
— Marla Hohner (@marlahohner) October 18, 2023
Kind of incredible to see Keenan Lantz (executive director of Guarding Against Pandemics) talking about encouraging people to talk to him about campaign finance rules and offering access to his compliance people in a chat where they were blatantly flouting these rules pic.twitter.com/16RG2LKJh2
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) October 17, 2023
Some have even suggested it was money laundering.
That's laundering, not an accident. He says it himself. it leaves plausibility open. "woops, i fat fingered the donation with an extra zero."
— JK (@jk_seriouslyjk) October 18, 2023
Unbelievable. @reSeeIt
😂😂
— Reminiscences of an American Capitalist (@4Awesometweet) October 18, 2023
This is gonna be a great Netflix show 😉
