Posted on 12/01/2022 7:54:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
As new revelations come out about disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and how he defrauded investors of millions of dollars only to spend their money on lascivious living and personal pet projects, one glaring fact remains: Bankman-Fried was the second-largest individual donor — with only George Soros topping him — to the Democrat Party during the 2022 midterm election cycle.
The 30-year-old crypto mogul gave more than $36 million to Democrats (particularly those who signaled opposition to regulating the cryptocurrency industry), including through Protect Our Future, a left-wing political action committee started under the auspices of guarding against another Covid-19-like pandemic.
But this isn’t new for Bankman-Fried, who’s been bankrolling Democratic politicians and causes since at least 2020. During that election cycle, he gave millions of dollars to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden as well as other Democrats. In an interview (pre-FTX collapse) titled, “Sam Bankman-Fried Wants to Save the World,” the then-billionaire said he would give between $100 million and $1 billion in the 2024 election.
Bankman-Fried is following in the footsteps of his mother, Stanford professor and Democratic activist Barbara Fried, who is the founder and president of the Silicon Valley-based leftist super PAC Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap was founded in 2018 to help progressive candidates win elections and funnel private donations to the Democratic Party. The group advises its ultra-left-wing (and ultra-rich) donors to fund 501(c)(3) voter registration nonprofits because “they are 2 to 5 times more cost-effective at netting additional Democratic votes” than advertising.
During the 2020 election, Mind the Gap told donors to give to three separate voter registration groups: the Voter Participation Center (VPC), the Center for Voter Information (CVI), and Everybody Votes (EV). In September 2020 alone, VPC and CVI sent out 7.1 million voter registration applications by mail largely to demographic groups that lean Democratic, while Everybody Votes worked to help register Democrat voters in key swing states.
“At current funding levels, the VPC, CVI, and EV programs together will be the largest voter registration drive in US history. Fully funded, they are projected to add roughly 3,000,000 people to the voter rolls, chiefly from communities of color, and yield 750,000 additional net votes in the November 2020 election in competitive battleground states across the country,” reads a 2019 memo from Mind the Gap.“Historical data suggest that 40-50% of these new voters will go on to vote in the 2022 elections without any additional campaign or [get-out-the-vote] encouragement.”
Best of all, because these donations are tax-deductible, funding such nonprofits is “4 to 10 times more cost-effective than the next best alternative,” the memo reads. Mind the Gap donors can simply write off these donations as “philanthropy” on their taxes, even though they’re funding explicitly partisan get-out-the-vote efforts.
Where does Bankman-Fried come into all this? While it appears the 30-year-old avoided pouring money into his mother’s super PAC for the 2022 cycle, his former employee, Nishad Singh, was Mind the Gap’s top donor for 2022. Singh was formally FTX’s engineering director and was only fired in mid-November after the company filed for bankruptcy.
Simply put: FTX money has fueled Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign through Mind the Gap for years, including targeting likely Democratic voters through ballot harvesting and sending out countless mail-in ballot applications. While this money was likely not FTX’s to spend, that did not stop Democrats or left-wing nonprofits from taking it. Perhaps this is why FTX didn’t crumble until after the 2022 midterm votes had been cast and why the two House Democrats charged with investigating FTX have been friendly with Bankman-Fried himself.
While it is true that Republicans must wake up to the electoral realities of the post-2020 era and invest in a ground game of their own, collusion between C-suite elites and Democratic Party partisans is still an existential threat to free and fair elections in modern-day American politics.
SBF is a pawn that was promised protection.
BLM existed to launder money for Dems
This dude laundered money for Dems
Wonder how many we have to go through before they run out of scams ?
Every election cycle the Dems always find some sleezy and corrupt donors to bankroll their steals.
I pray top end people lost everything in this scheme. You hear me Tom Brady 😂
The legacy media is already busy trying to rehabilitate the creep.
ACORN & MF Global/Corzine come to mind.
I hate being ‘Discraced’ .......................
Two words the Democrats never whine about anymore:
Citizens United
He was “paid” with an equity stake and is, and will be, fine.
Contract for broadcasting, 10 years $375 million.
I get it...but still hurts and how many people did he push towards the scam.
GOTV wins elections
Why was ours so non existent?
If they get their voters out to vote, either by mail in ballot, absentee, picking them up/drop off for early voting and on election day, how is that cheating? That is called a ground game, get out the vote wins elections.
We need to stop whining about “StoLen EleCTions” and start winning elections.
I understand, but I honestly think he’s too dense to know it was a scam.
Great football IQ, but investing IQ?
His wife’s job was to wear a tiny amount of clothing and look hungry…
The people in charge should have known…
And for the next election cycle, the Democrats will find another billionaire to support their “election” efforts!
True story brother
Making up the title of articles now? How about just posting the actual thing and letting FReepers come to their own conclusions without editing something or note that you altered something.
Somehow I feel you and I will be disappointed with the results of investigations.
How many were punished for the 2008 meltdown?
Another true story. 2008 destroyed me. Took 8 years to build back, but I’m there. I don’t trust banks, credit cards or government and pay cash for 75% of everything. Home is my only loan
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