House records recently made public have revealed that disgraced ftx founder sam bankman-fried met with senior biden administration officials in the white house on four occasions over the course of 2022. bankman-fried met on multiple occasions with steve ricchetti and bruce reed, two of president biden’s senior-most advisors. his brother, gabriel bankman-fried, also met with senior white house officials twice in 2022.
Of bankman-fried’s meetings with ricchetti and reed took place in the west wing of the white house, beginning in early 2022 and ending in the early fall of the same year. at the time of bankman-fried’s final visit to the white house, he was lobbying lawmakers to pass the digital commodities consumer protection act (dccpa).
White house press secretary karine jean-pierre has stated that the conversations between bankman-fried and senior white house officials focused primarily on bankman-fried’s nonprofit pandemic preparedness initiatives. however, jean-pierre also noted that the conversations may have also pertained to “general information” regarding the cryptocurrency industry and crypto exchanges. in the months preceding bankman-fried’s downfall, the crypto executive donated some $46.5 million to political causes, including $5 million to a political action committee (pac) that fueled a national pro-biden ad blitz in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election.
