Update From the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX)

Q. Okay. We'll come back to it in a minute. When you say withdrew unlimited amounts of funds, whose funds are you talking about?

Q. Mr. Wang, do you see any of the people you committed those crimes with in the courtroom today? You can stand up if you need to.

Q. Mr. Wang, in general terms for now, what did you do with the defendant that was the wire fraud you were referring to?

A. We gave special privileges to Alameda Research on FTX, which allowed it to withdraw unlimited amounts of funds from the platform, and we lied about this to the public.

Q. When you say withdrew unlimited funds from the platform, what are you referring to?

A. It had the ability to, regardless of what was in the account, to withdraw unlimited amounts of money.

realclearpolitics.com
Posted By Tim Hains
October 1, 2023

Sam Bankman-Fried Donated Multi-Millions
To McConnell’s List Of Anti-Trump Republicans

Michael Lewis, author of the new book “Going Infinite” about disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, told “60 Minutes” that the former finance CEO met with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell ahead of the 2022 election to help pick “Republican candidates at odds with Donald Trump” to fund.

Watch the full interview here via “60 Minutes.” link at web site

“The subtext of this dinner is Sam is gonna write tens of millions of dollars of checks to a super PAC that Mitch McConnell is then gonna use to get elected people who are not hostile to democracy,” Lewis said.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Sam Bankman-Fried ends up with a portfolio heavily concentrated in two things. Pandemic prevention, because there really are things the government should be doing. And the other thing that made his list that was so interesting was Donald Trump. He took the view that all the big existential problems are gonna require the United States government to be involved to solve them.

And if the democracy is undermined, it— like, we don’t have our democracy anymore, all these problems are less likely to be solved. And he saw Trump trying to undermine the democracy, and he thought, “Trump is— belongs on the list of existential risks.”

60 MINUTES: To that end, Lewis writes that in 2022, Bankman-Fried met with the most unlikely of allies, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. According to Lewis, Bankman-Fried wanted to help McConnell fund Republican candidates at odds with Donald Trump.

JON WERTHEIM, 60 MINUTES: You’re flying with Sam and he tells you about a meeting he’s gonna have with Mitch McConnell.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Well, the interesting thing starts before we even get on the plane. I meet him at the airport, and he comes tumbling out of a car. And he’s in his cargo shorts and his T-shirt. And he’s got, balled up in his hand— it takes me a while to see what it is, but it’s a blue suit. It’s got more wrinkles than any blue suit ever had. It’s been just jammed into this little ball. (laughs) And a shoe, like, falls out of the pile that he’s got in his arms. And I said, like, “What— why you have the suit?” And he says— (laughs) he says, “Mi— Mitch McConnell really cares what you wear when you— (laughs) when you meet with him.” And he’s having dinner in six hours with Mitch McConnell. And I— I said, “Well, you got the suit. Is there— you got a belt?” He goes, “No. I don’t have a belt.” I said, “You got— you have a shirt?” He goes, “No. No shirt,” “and the suit, you really can’t really wear that suit.” And he goes, “Yeah. But they told me to bring a suit.”

60 MINUTES: According to Lewis, Bankman-Fried wanted to help McConnell fund Republican candidates at odds with Donald Trump…

MICHAEL LEWIS: What is the subtext of this dinner, is Sam is gonna write tens of millions of dollars of checks to a super PAC that Mitch McConnell is then gonna use to get elected people who are not “hostile to democracy.”

JON WERTHEIM, 60 MINUTES: Wait. So, Mitch McConnell has a list of Republican candidates who are, sort of, on the playing field for democracy versus what he deemed outside?

MICHAEL LEWIS: He and his team had done the work to distinguish between actual deep Trumpers and people who were just seeming to approve of Donald Trump but we actually willing to govern.

60 MINUTES: Bankman-Fried ended up giving multi-millions in support of the Republican candidates. Back in 2020, Bankman-Fried had ranked among Joe Biden’s biggest donors. As 2024 approached, he planned on spending more, albeit in the most unconventional way.

Zelensky Pushing US for Long-term Security Deal Based On ‘Israeli Model’

BY DANIEL BUSH ON 8/31/23, newsweek.com

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinds on, officials far away from the frontlines in Washington and Kyiv are quietly negotiating a formal alliance that could reshape Europe’s security landscape.

The negotiations have been overshadowed by Kyiv’s push this summer to retake Russian-held territory in southern Ukraine, but the discussions drew fresh attention recently when Ukrainian President Volodymyr said he expects Ukraine and the United States will agree to a security pact that’s similar to the alliance between the U.S. and Israel. The two countries don’t have a defense treaty, but the U.S. provides Israel with billions in military aid and has long been its most important ally.

“We will likely get this exact model,” Zelensky said in an interview Sunday with Ukrainian media, “the Israeli model that includes weapons, technology, training [and] finances.”

Such an arrangement would provide Ukraine less security than membership in NATO, which President Biden has said won’t happen before the end of the war. But it would establish Ukraine as a critical long-term partner for the U.S. in Eastern Europe, while sending Russia the message that Western support for Kyiv won’t waiver.

“The point is to telegraph to Russia that they can’t just wait out the West,” said Eric Ciaramella, a former director for Ukraine at the National Security Council.

A formal security commitment to Ukraine “is a credible interim arrangement until the issue of NATO membership is clarified,” said Ciaramella, a Russia and Ukraine expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A bilateral security alliance along the lines of the pact between America and Israel would presumably create a permanent stream of military assistance to Ukraine, along with training, intelligence cooperation and other resources. Since the start of the war Congress has approved military aid for Ukraine on an ad hoc basis, creating uncertainty for Kyiv’s military planners.

A long-term security guarantee could also help insulate Ukraine from changes in power in the White House and Congress. A growing number of congressional Republicans and some of the party’s 2024 presidential candidates oppose giving Ukraine more military aid.

But it’s unclear from Zelensky’s comments whether negotiators are using Israel as a model for Ukraine, or if that is merely the direction he would like to see the talks take. Zelensky has been known to goad and cajole Western allies to try to get them to do more to support Ukraine.

Biden Zelensky pic-—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at the announcement of the G7 nations’ joint declaration for the support of Ukraine as U.S. President Joe Biden looks on on July 12, 2023 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES

Zelensky’s comments Sunday were not the first time he’s raised Israel as a possible model for the U.S.-Ukraine relationship going forward. He has mentioned it on at least two occasions last year, and it was included in a 2022 white paper endorsed by Zelensky’s top aide.

The Biden administration has said little publicly about the security negotiations with Ukraine since announcing in early August that the talks had begun.

In response to a request for comment, a White House official directed Newsweek to the joint declaration of support to Ukraine issued by Biden and the other leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations at the NATO summit in Lithuania in July.

All of the G7 countries pledged to formalize bilateral security commitments with Ukraine to help it build a military “force capable of defending Ukraine now and deterring Russian aggression in the future.” The commitments will include military equipment, training, intelligence sharing and supporting Ukraine’s defense industry, according to the communique.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment for this article. Officials from the State and Defense departments and the National Security Council launched bilateral security negotiations with Ukrainian officials on Aug. 3, according to the State Department.

The Biden administration has not laid out a timeline for the U.S.-Ukraine negotiations. Several questions remain about what an agreement would look like and how it would be implemented.

In the case of Israel, Congress is required by law to ensure that U.S. military aid in the Middle East region doesn’t damage Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors. That requirement enjoys broad bipartisan support and has served as a benchmark for ensuring Israel receives robust U.S. support.

The White House could take a similar approach with Ukraine, or try in some other way to codify U.S. support for Ukraine.

Either way, experts said an agreement backed by Biden would require approval from Congress on funding and other assistance. It’s also not a given that U.S. lawmakers will be as supportive of Ukraine as they are of Israel, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a nonprofit liberal advocacy group.

“The U.S.-Israel relationship is ‘unshakeable’ because of the bipartisan support that Israel gets,” Ben-Ami said. “I don’t know if that model is replicable anywhere else in the world.”

Zelensky is hoping Ukraine will be another exception. Ciaramella, the former NSC adviser, argued a security deal between Washington and Kyiv would benefit both sides, however it’s structured.

“It’s making the best, strongest set of commitments at a time when the platinum standard is just not achievable at the moment,” Ciaramella said, referring to NATO membership for Ukraine.

A long-term agreement is “not a silver bullet that will end the war overnight,” Ciaramella added. “But protracted conflict is a conflict of wills, and we have to show we’re in it for the long haul.”

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