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Imprisoned crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried landed in solitary confinement after he praised the GOP in a jailhouse interview with Tucker Carlson in an obvious ploy to win a pardon from Donald Trump, in response to a report.
Bankman-Fried fail to acquire permission for the interview from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, The New York Times reported Friday . The interview befell on a video name in a facet room of the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Heart on Thursday, which was Bankman-Fried’s thirty third birthday.
Bankman-Fried appeared to aim to curry favor with the GOP and Trump within the interview as he advised Carlson that he started to show his again on Democrats years in the past and developed a greater relationship with Republicans.
“I don’t suppose I’m a legal,” he additionally advised Carlson at jail, the place he famous that fellow inmate Sean “Diddy” Combs, who has been charged with intercourse crimes, has been “type” to him.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2023 after his conviction on seven counts of wireand securities fraud and cash laundering within the collapse of his crypto trade, FTX.
He misappropriated billions of dollars of customer funds deposited with FTX, defrauded FTX buyers of greater than $1.7 billion, and defrauded lenders to his cryptocurrency buying and selling fund Alameda of greater than $1.3 billion, in response to the Division of Justice.
Bankman-Fried’s plans for a “comeback” as FTX was imploding was to “go on Tucker Carlsen, come out as Republican,” in response to notes to himself revealed in an exhibit within the federal case in opposition to him.
He and his household have reportedly been stepping up a drive to win a pardon from Trump.
Bankman-Fried’s dad and mom, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, each Stanford College legislation professors who’re energetic within the Democratic Occasion, are consulting with Kory Langhofer, an Arizona lawyer who worked for Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, The Times reported.
There’s no indication they’ve had any contact but with Trump or with an in depth adviser, in response to the newspaper.
Bankman-Fried advised Carlson that he had a change of coronary heart on Democrats.
“In 2020, I used to be center-left and I gave to Biden’s marketing campaign. I used to be optimistic he can be a center-left president … [but] I used to be actually actually shocked by what I noticed there … and never in a superb path,” he mentioned.
Bankman-Fried claimed he progressively developed a greater relationship with Republicans, and underscored his deep pockets on the time. “By late 2022 I used to be giving to Republicans as a lot as Democrats,” he advised Carlson
In one other bow tp to Republicans and Trump, Bankman-Fried co-wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Put up final month arguing that Mr. Trump’s plans for a sovereign wealth fund might assist “dramatically enhance company productiveness.”
As for Combs, who’s on the identical cellblock as Bankman-Fried, he mentioned: “I’ve solely seen one piece of him, which is Diddy in jail, and he’s been type to folks within the unit; he’s been type to me, It’s a place nobody needs to be in,” he added, apparently referring to imprisonment, or imprisonment dealing with the fees he’s dealing with.
Trump has already pardoned hordes of criminals, together with some 1,500 MAGA supporters whom he hailed as “patriots” who stormed the nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021 to overturn the outcomes of the presidential election of Joe Biden.
Dozens of the defendants additionally had prior convictions or pending expenses for crimes together with rape, sexual abuse of a minor, domestic violence, manslaughter, manufacturing of kid sexual abuse materials and drug trafficking, in response to data.
Some have since been re-arrested for outstanding crimes or new ones committed after their release.
Trump additionally just lately pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the notorious Silk Road internet drug marketplace. He was serving a life sentence.
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