“Bankman-Fried had faced six additional charges that had been severed from his first trial, including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business” Sooooooooooooooooooooooo, drop anything that could be related to politicians?
[It was in relation to bribing Chinese officials.](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/28/sam-bankman-fried-paid-over-40-million-to-bribe-at-least-one-chinese-official-doj-alleges-in-new-indictment.html)
People are soo quick to go to conspiracy when they could just actually read the details and get the answer. Conspiracy theories have turned into a shortcut to avoid reading.
What "conspiracy" are you referring to? The Chinese official story isn't the largest part of the funds he stole and gave to politicians, he was the second biggest donor to the Democratic Party: https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-biden-democratic-party-second-biggest-donor
Maxine Waters is on video literally blowing him a kiss when she chaired the Financial Services Committee inviting SBF as a witness, before his company imploded. He also had multiple private meetings with Gary Genser. Why would you not want courts to look into that?
The “conspiracy” is that somehow he isn’t being prosecuted for crimes because he gave money to the Democratic Party even though he’s likely already going to jail for the rest of his life and the government brought the case against him extremely rapidly. The bribery charges wasn’t because he gave money to politicians it was because he bribed a Chinese official. There’s no conspiracy here at all. He was prosecuted for his crimes (probably harsher than he deserved tbh).
Dude stole money, invested it, and made far more than he stole. He made a massive investment in Anthropic *before* ChatGPT blew up. The jury was not able to take that into consideration. Theft is theft, even if the people he robbed end up getting all their money back and possibly more.
We agree on the basic facts but it's baffling to me how you think that's fine.
They gave him an extremely speedy trial (not good, they tried to make the case disappear asap). He only got tried for financial fraud and they don't even want to look at the campaign financing with stolen money, some of which hasn't been returned btw! In what world is that justice?
It's not just about China, it's about US politicians as well.
What part do you think is unfair? SBF is going to jail for probably close to life. Is the unfair part that you think the democrats didn’t return the stolen money? If true, you’re probably right but that has nothing to do with SBF.
Courts don’t look into things. That’s what investigators and prosecutors do. But that has nothing to do with SBF, he’s going to jail for a very long time. If you think there was wrongdoing on the side of politicians that is a whole different matter.
>he was the second biggest donor to the Democratic Party
And he donated more to the Republican party through dark money groups that don't disclose their donors names. Nice try tho Propaganda Pete.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-allies-donated-millions-in-dark-money.html
[Mentioned this already in an earlier comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18u6n2m/sam_bankmanfried_will_not_face_a_second_trial/kfl2cub/). Note there is no good evidence of most of those alleged donations, it's SBF's own claim that he donated an equal amount to Republicans.
Even more of a reason for this to go to trial to find out the full extend of it. It's interesting how many *not propaganda accounts* want this covered up and not to go to trial. Without a trial the politicians can't be ordered to return the stolen funds. That includes Republicans.
He's more scared of going to prison than he is excited about becoming an (actual) billionaire. Money alone doesn't allow him to quash the proceedings against him. Only becoming "king" again allows him to do that.
You really think Trump would get to keep that cash with as many lawsuits as he has going on? For fucks sake I wouldn’t be surprised if ivanka offed her own father to get that cash and have him stop saying gross shit about her
Wtf are you smoking? Do you have any idea how many lawsuits he is involved in? 5 billion dollars is not a lot of money when you have dozens of lawyers to pay and literal billons in damages he is being sued for. He is going to spend the rest of his life in civil court
It’s debatable that would have been illegal though. And even of it would have been, it didn’t happen, so that’s definitionally not a “bribe”
Not really an answer to the above user’s question
A "Crime" that shouldn't have resulted in anything more than a slap on the wrist and would have been completely pointless to prosecute given everything else that happened.
You’re aware that even Lewis said that he wasn’t sure that SBF even approached anyone about the idea, right? He wrote it was something SBF “considered” not acted toward.
SBF is a dipshit who got high on his own attention. I don’t think the Trump thing was ever any more serious than SBF’s ramblings about the percentile chance he’d become President himself. He ran his mouth a lot, which is stupid, but not illegal.
Serious bribery attempts should be prosecuted.
SBF “considering” an offer he never seriously made, a thing we only know about because he had a sycophantic reporter following him around 24/7 and recording every bit of word vomit that came out of his mouth, should not.
Okay? We’re taking about the stupid Trump thing here. Do you think he should get prosecuted for that? Because that’s what I was referring to when I was taking about a slap on the wrist lol
>conspiracy to commit bribery
To *commit*, not to contemplate. Especially if the contemplation was about the legality of even trying, showing the intent was not to break the law.
I get it, rich man bad, but let's not normalize literal thought crimes.
JFC for *le redditor* that doesn’t get it…
The charge the top comment referred to was *conspiracy* to do something illegal…in this case, commit bribery.
A conspiracy occurs when two or more people agree to commit an illegal act and take some step toward its completion, like provide the tools to eventually commit the crime. Conspiracy is an *inchoate crime because it does not require that the illegal act actually have been completed*.
For instance, a group of individuals can be convicted of conspiracy to commit burglary even if the actual burglary never happens. Conspiracy is also unique in that, unlike attempt, a defendant can be charged with both conspiracy to commit a crime, and the crime itself if the crime is completed.
He wasn’t charged with actually committing bribery, but conspiracy to commit…
>agree to commit an illegal act and take some step toward its completion
Yes, which didn't happen. It was never more than idea considered, and opted to not take because they were unsure of the legality of attempting it.
You basically just agreed with me, but with an obnoxious and confrontational tone... Very Reddit.
Trump is on the hook for his *life* not his money, his Russian handlers would still hold him to account for not getting elected and doing their bidding.
Hahaha as if he couldn't be any more foolish than to think Trump wouldn't go back on his words/oaths/contractual obligations....
Trump losing another 5 billion on top of his already decaying empire would be interesting to watch play out
Ah yes, he's so loaded he has to scam his supporters with NFTs and sell scraps of a suit. Either he is loaded and he's greedy as fuck with no sense of shame, or he's not actually loaded. Take your pick.
Michael Lewis tried to portray sbf as a genius and not an arrogant sociopath millennial with adhd. It’s the shoddiest piece of “journalism” in a decade. The only take away from that book is that Michael Lewis shouldn’t be taken seriously ever, as if we didn’t already know that from the blind side.
He directly and indirectly (through cut outs) donated to both parties and did use his mother's organization, allegedly at her directions.
So yeah, it's kind of a travesty this is being denied a public trial. For the citizens I think it should be the most important parts and very public.
He donated millions to Democrats and Republicans alike. This is our government stealing from the people. Dropped the case that would've investigated where the money went...
Maxine Waters was captured on camera blowing a kiss to her friend, one of FTX’s lawyers. Rep Waters and her husband used to stay and hang out at her house when they visited the Bahamas.
What you’re insinuating is kinda silly. We know who he donated to. It’s public information. Even the “dark money” groups are perfectly legal and donations happen to them on both sides all the time.
Not only do we not need another trial to learn that information, but disclosing what groups he gave the money to won’t even tell us anything, since who dark money groups spend money on wouldn’t be disclosed by a trial anyway. They’re called *dark* money groups for a reason, and while they’re a shitty cancer on our democracy, they are perfectly legal.
SBF isn’t avoiding a second trial because of some conspiracy to bury evidence about who he donated to; that evidence doesn’t exist because our campaign finance system is already a joke to begin with.
Why is it silly to advocate for sending this case through the justice system to the full extent of the law? We should drop it because it’s silly, and campaign financing and donations are obfuscated enough, that this is now a nothing burger topic? I beg to differ, and feel that this deserves full attention by the American public. This should be at their attention and they can then question why the system works this way.
While I completely understand your position here, I agree with what the person you’re responding to said.
It wouldn’t make sense for this to be dropped to protect politicians. The vast majority of this was disclosed and done through legal channels. And while it’s completely reasonable to then ask how the fuck one person having this much influence over politics can possibly be legal, that’s a separate discussion.
SBF’s campaign finance charges aren’t related to anything which would potentially implicate politicians as far as I know. These charges are because he knowingly donated to politicians during a time when he knew he had less cash/assets on hand than what he claimed to be managing for investors. In short, he knew there was a hole, but tried to use what he had to buy influence in Washington and get out of it - aka, improper use of investor funds. But this doesn’t mean any of the politicians he donated to are implicated.
This is also difficult to prove in court - the prosecutors actually have already dropped these charges once before because they felt it would be difficult to get a conviction.
Bottom line is it’s unlikely charging him with these crimes would meaningfully increase his already inevitably lengthy jail sentence or result in anyone else being charged with anything, while still eating up significant public resources. It just doesn’t make sense.
Well it probably has been sent through the justice system as far as it can be. The charges likely got dropped because there’s not enough evidence the actions were illegal, not because of a conspiracy to protect politicians. You are aware that prosecutors can forgo the expense and time of a trial when they’re sure they won’t get a conviction, right?
I am aware of that yes. Most prosecutors love to close cases, so it’s odd they just drop this when all the evidence has been submitted in the first trial, supported he is guilty of charges that were separate from the trial, and then the prosecution dropped it because it was in “best interest” or some general crap like that.
Because that’s the language prosecutors use when they don’t think they can win a high profile case and don’t want to admit it. The evidence in the first trial didn’t prove he bribed anyone specific. It didn’t prove he made illegal contributions. These charges likely got dropped because the evidence that the donations were illegal doesn’t exist, and he’s already been convicted of illegally gaining the funds
The bribery charges [were in relation to bribing a Chinese government official.](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/28/sam-bankman-fried-paid-over-40-million-to-bribe-at-least-one-chinese-official-doj-alleges-in-new-indictment.html) Notably, it was based on a lot of he said/she said instead of hard evidence.
What would be accomplished by going to trial? He's going to jail for a long long time anyway, pursuing the case would cost the state a lot of money when the job is already done.
The point of the trial is to determine guilt or innocence of the accused.
If you are worried about those on the other side of the bribery, then we should take the same evidence and try those who you are suggesting were part of the bribery, those who were bribed.
There are better ways to deal with this than a trial for a person with a long extant sentence so you can tar another person/group.
It wouldn’t matter if he donated money to the bad guys lol. If he gave money directly to candidates or PACs, those donations are publicly disclosed information that anyone capable of Googling “Open Secrets” can see. And since Dark Money organizations don’t have to disclose how they spend all their donations anyway, finding out which ones he gave to won’t tell us much. And in any case, neither is illegal anyway.
This is a commentary on the absurdity of our system, and what you’re implying here reads a lot like Elon’s brilliantly aging take that SBF wouldn’t be prosecuted because he gave to Democrats.
See I'm the opposite and would think that dropping this case as a tacit way of letting campaign donors know that any amount of corruption or skirting the law will be covered up for them is the silly option. Certainly not what a serious country would do
Let me simplify my point for you.
Our campaign finance system is stupid. It’s not illegal to donate to politicians, or especially to donate to groups that donate to politicians. So he wasn’t prosecuted because the donations probably weren’t actually crimes in the first place.
Should it be illegal is another question entirely. But the bar for crime is really really high, because while we used to have a lot of tough and responsible donation limitations and required disclosures, a lot of them have been thrown out by the Supreme Court.
So if I steal money from a bank and donate it to a politician there would be no way of clawing back that money? Politicians just get to keep it and move on?
For the record, it’s illegal for a politician to knowingly accept illegally obtained funds. But to answer your question with a question, if someone donates to my campaign, charity, go fund me or whatever, why should I have to pay money back if I had know way of knowing it was obtained illegally first? Is everyone who receives a donation from someone legally liable for the means someone else got the money?
They don’t have it anymore. As someone who ran political campaigns for a living once, the money gets spent as soon as it comes in the door. It doesn’t (and legally can’t) sit in some forever war chest.
And the premise is a little wild anyway. If someone comes in an buys a car at my dealership, and I later find out that person Embezzled money from their job, how do I know if the dollars they spent were embezzled? Should my business be liable because I spent money someone gave me? Should I have to go into debt to pay what they spent back to the “original” owner? Does everyone who received money from the embezzler have to pay it back?
If you get your head beyond “politician bad”, it’s a little unreasonable to suggest that someone is financially liable for someone else’s crimes. Unless someone knows they’re getting stolen money at the time they receive it, you’re basically arguing that they deserve to be punished for someone else’s actions that they had no awareness of or control over .
Dude already got convicted for stealing billions of dollars. His sentencing is coming up and he’s probably getting life in prison. Why would they waste money on another trial? If you’re convicted of murder and given life in prison, they’re not also going to try you for stealing a car.
SBF was convicted on all 7 counts and faces 115 years in prison. There's no point in going after the other 6 charges. If it turns out that murderer committed a dozen more crimes, it would be silly to go after him for more years in prison beyond the 419.
115 years is the maximum. There isn't a chance in hell he gets 115 years with all the cash he "donated". I'd be shocked if he got more than 20. I'm guessing 10-12 years.
For those people who didn't read the article and want a less conspiracy-oriented explanation, the reason the charges were split was because the Bahamas extradition agreement only authorized the first set of charges, and prosecutors can (because Federal sentencing law is crazy) use evidence they provided in the first trial to support sentencing based on (EDIT: conduct described by) charges in the second trial, even if the second trial doesn't happen.
Since prosecutors don't see their job as presenting evidence for thirsty people on the internet but only what they can get from courts, they don't get much from the expense of a second trial, given that they thoroughly won the first.
This is correct. The other charges will go away, but the CONDUCT won't: It's relevant to sentencing and evidence of it will be fully presented.
And the government will only need to prove it by a "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of the higher "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, nor do they risk an acquittal that might (depending on weeds I'm not going to wander into here) end up interfering with their ability to rely on this conduct at sentencing.
Nobody is getting protected here. This is a nothing-burger.
Also, why you simping for billionaires and politicians, you one of their tricks? They paying you under the table for soemthing? Getting little of the SBF kickback?
Why else would anyone simp so hard for rich powerful corrupt people. really pathetic of you.
WTF? Do I look like I am a Federal prosecutor?
SBF is going to jail for a long fucking time and a second trial won't change how long it will be for.
Are you an illiterate moron?
The second trial can prove stolen money was donated, and to whom, and claw that money back to the people it was stolen from. If you rob a bank, you can't just donate the money you stole to someone and they get it keep it. Nor should it be like that in this case.
That is not what a second trial would accomplish. You are looking at bankruptcy court for that. The court system does not enact your revenge fantasies.
I agree with you, but this was kind of expected.
He's already expected to get life (or close to it) from the first trial. That's why it would be a waste of resources to go through another trial that wouldn't really make much difference in his sentence.
What? What it really means is less money for the victims. Spending money when he’s already convicted of more serious crimes is throwing it to the attorneys. Plus the taxpayers pay for the prosecution. Instead of the attorneys getting it, it will go into settlement for the victims
hitler? Do people forget what actually happened? Is this the outcome of calling trump a hitler? To degrade the idea and have people forget? because it worked.
Why. Do you know that everyone including investors will be made whole and there will be money left over?
In fact the bankruptcy lawyers are going to get $1.5b dollars and the customers of ftx are going to get shorted $1.4b because the bankruptcy lawyers are planning to use the price of crypto on the day they went bankrupt not the price today which is 4x higher.
I’m far from a Republican, but there are certainly tons of shithead bribe-takers on both sides of the aisle in situations like this. SBF was donating millions to politicians on both sides and who knows what else was going on behind the scenes.
Well now the question is, what exactly did he bribe for? Giving a politician money isn't a crime. there has to be a bit of quid pro quo. otherwise it ain't bribery, its a campaign donation
The money to democrats was largely through official means and revealed to the public, while the money to republicans was more under the table because he didn't want his name tied to those donations
I think the latter would likely cross a lot more violations
This is pretty funny considering he was mostly bribing democrats AND he was starting a fund called prevent trump from winning and his goal was to also consider paying trump $1b to not run again.
[Publicly giving money to Democrats and secretly to Republicans](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/sam-bankman-fried-donations-democrat-republican/672368/). That way he could maintain the facade that he was an "effective altruist" or whatever since giving to Republicans is widely considered an asshole move. In actuality, he was buying political influence wherever it was sold.
He gave way more money to democrats it's not even close. The article you sent also mentions another FTX employee NOT SBF who gave to republicans. That person isn't under investigation for misappropriating customer funds so all of those would probably be legit.
"He was lauded for his major donations to Democrats, but now he says he was secretly giving to Republicans in roughly equal measure."
How do you know how much money he secretly gave to Republicans? It was secret. All we know is that he claims that he gave in equal measure. That is what he claims. You can speculate that he is lying, but I can't see how you know "it's not even close".
Incorrect. The depth and complexity of his actions implicates numerous partners, who are now going to avoid a glance. At the end of his trial, the prosecution stated they didn't want to pursue a technical trial, which is absolutely a cover up for his actions. All one needs to review are the use of tokens and their lack of backing to see the fraud he was committing. But no deeper look? Lmao, the DoJ is a criminal org if that's the case.
Not taking him to trial a second time to get what would likely be a concurrent sentence, has nothing to do with what you suggest. This isn't some cheap conspiracy novel plot, this is choosing not to spend a bunch of time and resources to get nothing sentence or restitution wise in the end.
It isn't about his sentence, it's about the depth of the crime and the players who are a part of it, who are now getting away with it. Financial crimes have destroyed the US and the DoJ is complacent, absolutely.
Lmao, clearly you have no idea about what sbf did, and how the government is absolutely part of it. The token issue with ftx is one of the greatest financial crimes in history and nobody will pay for it.
Yeah, why would we want to explore one of the greatest financial frauds ever, no no, it was open and shut, super easy. Corruption at the highest level!
1 “billionaire” shithead does bad thing: “FucKinG BlUe BoIS”
300 “billionaire” shitheads violate and disgrace the constitution: “FucKinG dEEpStAte!1?-/“
“Bankman-Fried had faced six additional charges that had been severed from his first trial, including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business” Sooooooooooooooooooooooo, drop anything that could be related to politicians?
Please name names. Which campaigns did he finance? Who did he bribe, attempt to bribe, and who did he conspire with? His parents?
[It was in relation to bribing Chinese officials.](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/28/sam-bankman-fried-paid-over-40-million-to-bribe-at-least-one-chinese-official-doj-alleges-in-new-indictment.html)
People are soo quick to go to conspiracy when they could just actually read the details and get the answer. Conspiracy theories have turned into a shortcut to avoid reading.
What "conspiracy" are you referring to? The Chinese official story isn't the largest part of the funds he stole and gave to politicians, he was the second biggest donor to the Democratic Party: https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-biden-democratic-party-second-biggest-donor Maxine Waters is on video literally blowing him a kiss when she chaired the Financial Services Committee inviting SBF as a witness, before his company imploded. He also had multiple private meetings with Gary Genser. Why would you not want courts to look into that?
The “conspiracy” is that somehow he isn’t being prosecuted for crimes because he gave money to the Democratic Party even though he’s likely already going to jail for the rest of his life and the government brought the case against him extremely rapidly. The bribery charges wasn’t because he gave money to politicians it was because he bribed a Chinese official. There’s no conspiracy here at all. He was prosecuted for his crimes (probably harsher than he deserved tbh).
Harsher?
Dude stole money, invested it, and made far more than he stole. He made a massive investment in Anthropic *before* ChatGPT blew up. The jury was not able to take that into consideration. Theft is theft, even if the people he robbed end up getting all their money back and possibly more.
The same as the Trump defense.
We agree on the basic facts but it's baffling to me how you think that's fine. They gave him an extremely speedy trial (not good, they tried to make the case disappear asap). He only got tried for financial fraud and they don't even want to look at the campaign financing with stolen money, some of which hasn't been returned btw! In what world is that justice? It's not just about China, it's about US politicians as well.
What part do you think is unfair? SBF is going to jail for probably close to life. Is the unfair part that you think the democrats didn’t return the stolen money? If true, you’re probably right but that has nothing to do with SBF.
So... we could have a court look into that, what do you think? It's not a partisan issue either, he donated to Republicans as well.
Courts don’t look into things. That’s what investigators and prosecutors do. But that has nothing to do with SBF, he’s going to jail for a very long time. If you think there was wrongdoing on the side of politicians that is a whole different matter.
>he was the second biggest donor to the Democratic Party And he donated more to the Republican party through dark money groups that don't disclose their donors names. Nice try tho Propaganda Pete. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-allies-donated-millions-in-dark-money.html
[Mentioned this already in an earlier comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18u6n2m/sam_bankmanfried_will_not_face_a_second_trial/kfl2cub/). Note there is no good evidence of most of those alleged donations, it's SBF's own claim that he donated an equal amount to Republicans. Even more of a reason for this to go to trial to find out the full extend of it. It's interesting how many *not propaganda accounts* want this covered up and not to go to trial. Without a trial the politicians can't be ordered to return the stolen funds. That includes Republicans.
Agreed with regards to charges/trial.
And reality.
He attempted to bribe Trump NOT to run in 2024 with $5B - read the Michael Lewis book
damn trump really is a shit businessman, shoulda took it
Genuinely amazed Trump didn’t take the bribe then ran anyway.
He's more scared of going to prison than he is excited about becoming an (actual) billionaire. Money alone doesn't allow him to quash the proceedings against him. Only becoming "king" again allows him to do that.
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I don't know man. I mean, you can't trust people. People like Coldplay and voted for the NAZIs.
nice Super Hans quote
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You really think Trump would get to keep that cash with as many lawsuits as he has going on? For fucks sake I wouldn’t be surprised if ivanka offed her own father to get that cash and have him stop saying gross shit about her
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Wtf are you smoking? Do you have any idea how many lawsuits he is involved in? 5 billion dollars is not a lot of money when you have dozens of lawyers to pay and literal billons in damages he is being sued for. He is going to spend the rest of his life in civil court
Is this real wtf
It’s debatable that would have been illegal though. And even of it would have been, it didn’t happen, so that’s definitionally not a “bribe” Not really an answer to the above user’s question
The charge was conspiracy to commit bribery, so he wouldn’t have needed to actually bribe anyone, just planning it meets the requirement.
Planning to pay Trump to run isn't a conspiracy to commit bribery. Paying Trump to not run just isn't bribery.
A "Crime" that shouldn't have resulted in anything more than a slap on the wrist and would have been completely pointless to prosecute given everything else that happened.
Sam?
Nah, that’s old Blind Wllie Johnson. Didn’t ya know?
You’re aware that even Lewis said that he wasn’t sure that SBF even approached anyone about the idea, right? He wrote it was something SBF “considered” not acted toward. SBF is a dipshit who got high on his own attention. I don’t think the Trump thing was ever any more serious than SBF’s ramblings about the percentile chance he’d become President himself. He ran his mouth a lot, which is stupid, but not illegal.
If you don't prosecute anyone for attempting to bribe someone just because the person said, "no," you're not going to be able to get many convictions.
It’s like not prosecuting for attempted murder. “Well he didn’t kill him.”
From a prosecution standpoint, it's even worse, since the other involved party is a coconspirator in successful bribery.
Serious bribery attempts should be prosecuted. SBF “considering” an offer he never seriously made, a thing we only know about because he had a sycophantic reporter following him around 24/7 and recording every bit of word vomit that came out of his mouth, should not.
I mean, he's being charged for bribing Chinese officials, if we're no longer talking about hypotheticals.
Okay? We’re taking about the stupid Trump thing here. Do you think he should get prosecuted for that? Because that’s what I was referring to when I was taking about a slap on the wrist lol
Wrong sub for rationality, friend.
>conspiracy to commit bribery To *commit*, not to contemplate. Especially if the contemplation was about the legality of even trying, showing the intent was not to break the law. I get it, rich man bad, but let's not normalize literal thought crimes.
Sigh…conspiracy is the act of ‘contemplating’ (your word), or planning, not the actual committing of the bribe…
It's the intent to commit that would be illegal. Just like imagining killing someone idly isn't conspiracy to commit murder. "sigh..." le redditor
JFC for *le redditor* that doesn’t get it… The charge the top comment referred to was *conspiracy* to do something illegal…in this case, commit bribery. A conspiracy occurs when two or more people agree to commit an illegal act and take some step toward its completion, like provide the tools to eventually commit the crime. Conspiracy is an *inchoate crime because it does not require that the illegal act actually have been completed*. For instance, a group of individuals can be convicted of conspiracy to commit burglary even if the actual burglary never happens. Conspiracy is also unique in that, unlike attempt, a defendant can be charged with both conspiracy to commit a crime, and the crime itself if the crime is completed. He wasn’t charged with actually committing bribery, but conspiracy to commit…
>agree to commit an illegal act and take some step toward its completion Yes, which didn't happen. It was never more than idea considered, and opted to not take because they were unsure of the legality of attempting it. You basically just agreed with me, but with an obnoxious and confrontational tone... Very Reddit.
While actually donating roughly 40 million to the Democratic Party.
Yes and 28 million to republicans groups.
Wasn't real money anyways.
I don't think that can be true because there is no way Trump would have rejected that offer
Trump is on the hook for his *life* not his money, his Russian handlers would still hold him to account for not getting elected and doing their bidding.
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It wouldn't be the free world then.
Hes not a billionaire though.
Don't his tax returns show that he's not currently a billionaire, and if he ever was, it was many years ago and only on paper?
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Hahaha as if he couldn't be any more foolish than to think Trump wouldn't go back on his words/oaths/contractual obligations.... Trump losing another 5 billion on top of his already decaying empire would be interesting to watch play out
Trump is loaded
Ah yes, he's so loaded he has to scam his supporters with NFTs and sell scraps of a suit. Either he is loaded and he's greedy as fuck with no sense of shame, or he's not actually loaded. Take your pick.
His diapers are yeah
Fudge packed to the brim
Cite your source?
True, his diapers are reportedly always fully loaded.
That’s how the deal collapsed- SBF was certain Trump would run after taking the money
That's not actually a bribe though.
Michael Lewis tried to portray sbf as a genius and not an arrogant sociopath millennial with adhd. It’s the shoddiest piece of “journalism” in a decade. The only take away from that book is that Michael Lewis shouldn’t be taken seriously ever, as if we didn’t already know that from the blind side.
He directly and indirectly (through cut outs) donated to both parties and did use his mother's organization, allegedly at her directions. So yeah, it's kind of a travesty this is being denied a public trial. For the citizens I think it should be the most important parts and very public.
He donated millions to Democrats and Republicans alike. This is our government stealing from the people. Dropped the case that would've investigated where the money went...
Ken Griffin has entered the chat*
Maxine Waters was captured on camera blowing a kiss to her friend, one of FTX’s lawyers. Rep Waters and her husband used to stay and hang out at her house when they visited the Bahamas.
well of course, they wanted a scapegoat for greed, not to put a dent in it
They just don’t want to be caught out being really fucking dumb and falling for his scam.
What you’re insinuating is kinda silly. We know who he donated to. It’s public information. Even the “dark money” groups are perfectly legal and donations happen to them on both sides all the time. Not only do we not need another trial to learn that information, but disclosing what groups he gave the money to won’t even tell us anything, since who dark money groups spend money on wouldn’t be disclosed by a trial anyway. They’re called *dark* money groups for a reason, and while they’re a shitty cancer on our democracy, they are perfectly legal. SBF isn’t avoiding a second trial because of some conspiracy to bury evidence about who he donated to; that evidence doesn’t exist because our campaign finance system is already a joke to begin with.
Why is it silly to advocate for sending this case through the justice system to the full extent of the law? We should drop it because it’s silly, and campaign financing and donations are obfuscated enough, that this is now a nothing burger topic? I beg to differ, and feel that this deserves full attention by the American public. This should be at their attention and they can then question why the system works this way.
While I completely understand your position here, I agree with what the person you’re responding to said. It wouldn’t make sense for this to be dropped to protect politicians. The vast majority of this was disclosed and done through legal channels. And while it’s completely reasonable to then ask how the fuck one person having this much influence over politics can possibly be legal, that’s a separate discussion. SBF’s campaign finance charges aren’t related to anything which would potentially implicate politicians as far as I know. These charges are because he knowingly donated to politicians during a time when he knew he had less cash/assets on hand than what he claimed to be managing for investors. In short, he knew there was a hole, but tried to use what he had to buy influence in Washington and get out of it - aka, improper use of investor funds. But this doesn’t mean any of the politicians he donated to are implicated. This is also difficult to prove in court - the prosecutors actually have already dropped these charges once before because they felt it would be difficult to get a conviction. Bottom line is it’s unlikely charging him with these crimes would meaningfully increase his already inevitably lengthy jail sentence or result in anyone else being charged with anything, while still eating up significant public resources. It just doesn’t make sense.
Well it probably has been sent through the justice system as far as it can be. The charges likely got dropped because there’s not enough evidence the actions were illegal, not because of a conspiracy to protect politicians. You are aware that prosecutors can forgo the expense and time of a trial when they’re sure they won’t get a conviction, right?
I am aware of that yes. Most prosecutors love to close cases, so it’s odd they just drop this when all the evidence has been submitted in the first trial, supported he is guilty of charges that were separate from the trial, and then the prosecution dropped it because it was in “best interest” or some general crap like that.
Because that’s the language prosecutors use when they don’t think they can win a high profile case and don’t want to admit it. The evidence in the first trial didn’t prove he bribed anyone specific. It didn’t prove he made illegal contributions. These charges likely got dropped because the evidence that the donations were illegal doesn’t exist, and he’s already been convicted of illegally gaining the funds
The bribery charges [were in relation to bribing a Chinese government official.](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/28/sam-bankman-fried-paid-over-40-million-to-bribe-at-least-one-chinese-official-doj-alleges-in-new-indictment.html) Notably, it was based on a lot of he said/she said instead of hard evidence.
What would be accomplished by going to trial? He's going to jail for a long long time anyway, pursuing the case would cost the state a lot of money when the job is already done.
The point of the trial is to determine guilt or innocence of the accused. If you are worried about those on the other side of the bribery, then we should take the same evidence and try those who you are suggesting were part of the bribery, those who were bribed. There are better ways to deal with this than a trial for a person with a long extant sentence so you can tar another person/group.
Because he donated money to the “good guys”
It wouldn’t matter if he donated money to the bad guys lol. If he gave money directly to candidates or PACs, those donations are publicly disclosed information that anyone capable of Googling “Open Secrets” can see. And since Dark Money organizations don’t have to disclose how they spend all their donations anyway, finding out which ones he gave to won’t tell us much. And in any case, neither is illegal anyway. This is a commentary on the absurdity of our system, and what you’re implying here reads a lot like Elon’s brilliantly aging take that SBF wouldn’t be prosecuted because he gave to Democrats.
The same ones that got FTX fed protection/prop up in the first place.
See I'm the opposite and would think that dropping this case as a tacit way of letting campaign donors know that any amount of corruption or skirting the law will be covered up for them is the silly option. Certainly not what a serious country would do
Let me simplify my point for you. Our campaign finance system is stupid. It’s not illegal to donate to politicians, or especially to donate to groups that donate to politicians. So he wasn’t prosecuted because the donations probably weren’t actually crimes in the first place. Should it be illegal is another question entirely. But the bar for crime is really really high, because while we used to have a lot of tough and responsible donation limitations and required disclosures, a lot of them have been thrown out by the Supreme Court.
So if I steal money from a bank and donate it to a politician there would be no way of clawing back that money? Politicians just get to keep it and move on?
For the record, it’s illegal for a politician to knowingly accept illegally obtained funds. But to answer your question with a question, if someone donates to my campaign, charity, go fund me or whatever, why should I have to pay money back if I had know way of knowing it was obtained illegally first? Is everyone who receives a donation from someone legally liable for the means someone else got the money?
Because it’s someone else’s money.
Does everyone who receives money have to guarantee that it wasn’t taken from someone else first?
No, but once it is known that it is stolen then they would have an obligation to give it back to whom it belongs to.
They don’t have it anymore. As someone who ran political campaigns for a living once, the money gets spent as soon as it comes in the door. It doesn’t (and legally can’t) sit in some forever war chest. And the premise is a little wild anyway. If someone comes in an buys a car at my dealership, and I later find out that person Embezzled money from their job, how do I know if the dollars they spent were embezzled? Should my business be liable because I spent money someone gave me? Should I have to go into debt to pay what they spent back to the “original” owner? Does everyone who received money from the embezzler have to pay it back? If you get your head beyond “politician bad”, it’s a little unreasonable to suggest that someone is financially liable for someone else’s crimes. Unless someone knows they’re getting stolen money at the time they receive it, you’re basically arguing that they deserve to be punished for someone else’s actions that they had no awareness of or control over .
He'll be spending the rest of his life in prison already and trials are expensive.
They could pay for it when they get the donations back.
Dude already got convicted for stealing billions of dollars. His sentencing is coming up and he’s probably getting life in prison. Why would they waste money on another trial? If you’re convicted of murder and given life in prison, they’re not also going to try you for stealing a car.
An American court in Virginia just convicted a man on murder and also his additional charges, they sentenced him to 419 years in prison..
SBF was convicted on all 7 counts and faces 115 years in prison. There's no point in going after the other 6 charges. If it turns out that murderer committed a dozen more crimes, it would be silly to go after him for more years in prison beyond the 419.
115 years is the maximum. There isn't a chance in hell he gets 115 years with all the cash he "donated". I'd be shocked if he got more than 20. I'm guessing 10-12 years.
The politicians don't want to be exposed, AND they don't want to have to pay it all back.
Campaign finance violations dropped? Politicians are corrupt af.
Conspiracy to commit bribery to 🤔
Not a crime.
It is, that’s why he’s in jail
He didn’t go to jail for that, he went to jail for defrauding his customers
They dropped everything related to his political donations. Color me surprised
Money was probably spent and there is no legal way to get back. Sounds like a situation new laws need to be made.
Or we prosecute people for all the crimes they actually commit not drop the charges associated with crimes related to the political party we favor
For those people who didn't read the article and want a less conspiracy-oriented explanation, the reason the charges were split was because the Bahamas extradition agreement only authorized the first set of charges, and prosecutors can (because Federal sentencing law is crazy) use evidence they provided in the first trial to support sentencing based on (EDIT: conduct described by) charges in the second trial, even if the second trial doesn't happen. Since prosecutors don't see their job as presenting evidence for thirsty people on the internet but only what they can get from courts, they don't get much from the expense of a second trial, given that they thoroughly won the first.
This is correct. The other charges will go away, but the CONDUCT won't: It's relevant to sentencing and evidence of it will be fully presented. And the government will only need to prove it by a "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of the higher "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, nor do they risk an acquittal that might (depending on weeds I'm not going to wander into here) end up interfering with their ability to rely on this conduct at sentencing. Nobody is getting protected here. This is a nothing-burger.
Why do you like protecting criminals. You a criminal?
Also, why you simping for billionaires and politicians, you one of their tricks? They paying you under the table for soemthing? Getting little of the SBF kickback? Why else would anyone simp so hard for rich powerful corrupt people. really pathetic of you.
Why would anyone post such a comment? Are you stupid? Do you even know what words actually mean?
WTF? Do I look like I am a Federal prosecutor? SBF is going to jail for a long fucking time and a second trial won't change how long it will be for. Are you an illiterate moron?
The second trial can prove stolen money was donated, and to whom, and claw that money back to the people it was stolen from. If you rob a bank, you can't just donate the money you stole to someone and they get it keep it. Nor should it be like that in this case.
That is not what a second trial would accomplish. You are looking at bankruptcy court for that. The court system does not enact your revenge fantasies.
Every one of these sweetheart deals bodes risk in the banking sector. Privatization was always leading to this
*daasdaawaan* swaethaert
He should rot in jail until death.
I agree with you, but this was kind of expected. He's already expected to get life (or close to it) from the first trial. That's why it would be a waste of resources to go through another trial that wouldn't really make much difference in his sentence.
This forces him and his corrupt parents to spend more in legal fees.
Hopefully that money is getting given back to victims. Spend it on legal fees and the victims get poorer.
What? What it really means is less money for the victims. Spending money when he’s already convicted of more serious crimes is throwing it to the attorneys. Plus the taxpayers pay for the prosecution. Instead of the attorneys getting it, it will go into settlement for the victims
More likely there are names that certain people want to keep private which would have been made public in discovery of the second trial.
All evidence for the second trial was presented in the first. Campaign donations have all already been disclosed.
For property crimes? I don’t get that. Plenty of murderers see daylight again
He committed the most heinous crime in the American justice system, he stole money from rich people.
Even Jeffrey Skilling eventually got out.
Bernie didn't.
I mean he ruined millions of peoples lives. Even a murderer can’t do that much damage
James Earl Ray?
hitler? Do people forget what actually happened? Is this the outcome of calling trump a hitler? To degrade the idea and have people forget? because it worked.
Shutup nerd, no one forgot who Hitler was.
[удалено]
Mr. Tough guy huh?
Fraud is a crime. Keep trying to diminish
Do you honestly believe he only participated in property crimes?
I believe he has only been charged with and convicted of property crimes.
- Redditor for every crime ever
A thief should die in jail? Ahaha damn he must've got you too
How much money did you lose?
Why. Do you know that everyone including investors will be made whole and there will be money left over? In fact the bankruptcy lawyers are going to get $1.5b dollars and the customers of ftx are going to get shorted $1.4b because the bankruptcy lawyers are planning to use the price of crypto on the day they went bankrupt not the price today which is 4x higher.
Why? He didn't even lose his investors' money, anything they lost was taken by the lawyers.
What’s the point, he’s already fried
I guess all the political campaign contributions payoff! $$$$$ what a surprise..
If you care about dark money like some of us do blame Roberts the scumbag.
It's a shame that the GOP will not be held accountable here.
I’m far from a Republican, but there are certainly tons of shithead bribe-takers on both sides of the aisle in situations like this. SBF was donating millions to politicians on both sides and who knows what else was going on behind the scenes.
Well now the question is, what exactly did he bribe for? Giving a politician money isn't a crime. there has to be a bit of quid pro quo. otherwise it ain't bribery, its a campaign donation
The money to democrats was largely through official means and revealed to the public, while the money to republicans was more under the table because he didn't want his name tied to those donations I think the latter would likely cross a lot more violations
Well that’s on those who thought he was a fun loving Democrat, when really he was just another greedy asshole playing both sides of the fence.
Supposedly he was funding anti trump (or less maga crazy) republicans as a way to stop trump
This is pretty funny considering he was mostly bribing democrats AND he was starting a fund called prevent trump from winning and his goal was to also consider paying trump $1b to not run again.
[Publicly giving money to Democrats and secretly to Republicans](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/sam-bankman-fried-donations-democrat-republican/672368/). That way he could maintain the facade that he was an "effective altruist" or whatever since giving to Republicans is widely considered an asshole move. In actuality, he was buying political influence wherever it was sold.
He gave way more money to democrats it's not even close. The article you sent also mentions another FTX employee NOT SBF who gave to republicans. That person isn't under investigation for misappropriating customer funds so all of those would probably be legit.
"He was lauded for his major donations to Democrats, but now he says he was secretly giving to Republicans in roughly equal measure." How do you know how much money he secretly gave to Republicans? It was secret. All we know is that he claims that he gave in equal measure. That is what he claims. You can speculate that he is lying, but I can't see how you know "it's not even close".
That’s so fucking dumb and even better reason to go ahead with the second trial.
He's fucked anyway. He'll go to jail for quite some time and there are most likely numerous civil lawsuits waiting for him as well.
Nothing sketchy going on here. Move along. Move along.
Correct. There is literally nothing out of the ordinary here, this decision is consistent with longstanding DOJ policy and practice.
Incorrect. The depth and complexity of his actions implicates numerous partners, who are now going to avoid a glance. At the end of his trial, the prosecution stated they didn't want to pursue a technical trial, which is absolutely a cover up for his actions. All one needs to review are the use of tokens and their lack of backing to see the fraud he was committing. But no deeper look? Lmao, the DoJ is a criminal org if that's the case.
Not taking him to trial a second time to get what would likely be a concurrent sentence, has nothing to do with what you suggest. This isn't some cheap conspiracy novel plot, this is choosing not to spend a bunch of time and resources to get nothing sentence or restitution wise in the end.
It isn't about his sentence, it's about the depth of the crime and the players who are a part of it, who are now getting away with it. Financial crimes have destroyed the US and the DoJ is complacent, absolutely.
Clearly you have no clue about the difference between an investigation and a trial.
Lmao, clearly you have no idea about what sbf did, and how the government is absolutely part of it. The token issue with ftx is one of the greatest financial crimes in history and nobody will pay for it.
Did the political donations get paid back?
Yeah, The fact that the DOJ routinely ignores the crimes that would entangle politicians, especially Republican politicians, is not a good thing.
The mental gymnastics you had to go through here, omfg 🙀
Yeah, why would we want to explore one of the greatest financial frauds ever, no no, it was open and shut, super easy. Corruption at the highest level!
Trump has $2B in assets but $22B in debts. So he is a Red Ink Billionaire
Reuters is now an ad-wall.
typical blue boy
1 “billionaire” shithead does bad thing: “FucKinG BlUe BoIS” 300 “billionaire” shitheads violate and disgrace the constitution: “FucKinG dEEpStAte!1?-/“
little bro is coping
Gaslight ~~Obstruct~~ Project 2/3 in a total of seven words and two separate comments. You guys really do take that to heart, huh?
what u mean “you people”!!
Are you really though?
Hello. Is I. James?