A convicted fraudster and Democratic megadonor is seeking a pardon and praising President Donald Trump from his prison cell — and Republican congressmen say they are fed up.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy-related charges.
SBF has been praising Trump’s TrumpRX and his crypto policies, while also defending rising gas prices on X.
“The current spike only highlights how much oil prices have lowered under [Trump],” SBF’s X account posted Saturday. (RELATED: American Small Business Owners, Manufacturers Still Feeling The Squeeze From Trump’s Tariffs)
The current spike only highlights how much oil prices have lowered under @realDonaldTrump.
🛢️:
Trump (2017-2020): $58
Biden (2021-2024): $83
Trump (2025): $68Average price over the whole of 2022: $99
Price yesterday: $100Calm down.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) March 14, 2026
The X account’s bio claims all of its posts are SBF’s words shared through approved Bureau of Prisons (BOP) methods of contact and are only published by a proxy.
“The guy’s a piece of shit,” Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, a crypto enthusiast, told Politico. “The guy shouldn’t be pardoned. The guy should go to jail for a long, long time.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 15: FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at Manhattan Federal Court for a court appearance on June 15, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
He wasn’t alone.
Dubbed the Senate’s “crypto queen,” Republican Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis told Politico she hopes Trump isn’t falling for it, saying SBF had “hurt a lot of people.”
“[SBF] should have to spend some time contemplating that,” Lummis added.
Republican Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood told Politico that SBF had “crashed the car” due to his massive fraud.
“Wall Street’s not needing him back to fix any problems,” Flood continued. “He helped us identify a problem by committing a massive amount of fraud — and we rewarded him with a long stay in a federal prison.”
A January interview with Trump, conducted by The New York Times (NYT), revealed that Trump had no plans to pardon SBF.
“I don’t know him at all, no,” Trump told the outlet.
FTX collapsed in 2022 following accusations that it had mishandled billions of dollars in customers’ money. SBF was ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release.
SBF also contributed around $39 million during the 2022 midterm elections, with a majority of the support backing Democrat-aligned causes, according to The Washington Post’s analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) data.
SBF’s lawyers did not return the Daily Caller’s request for comment.
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