A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., confirmed Thursday that Vermont’s newest member of Congress is “fully cooperating” with federal authorities in the prosecution of disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried.
In a superseding indictment filed Thursday in federal court, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York outlined new details about an alleged Bankman-Fried scheme to illegally funnel investor funds to political campaigns through associates to mask their source.
The former CEO of the crypto exchange platform FTX did so, prosecutors wrote, “to improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX’s profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to (Bankman-Fried’s) personal agenda,” including crypto regulations.
One donation in particular cited in the indictment appears to mirror the circumstances that led to a million-dollar influx of pro-Balint spending in Vermont’s 2022 congressional primary. Balint is not named in the indictment and has not been accused of wrongdoing.
Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried and associates “agreed that he and his co-conspirators should contribute at least a million dollars to a super PAC that was supporting a candidate running for a United States Congressional seat and appeared to be affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues.”
According to prosecutors, an unnamed political consultant working for Bankman-Fried told an unnamed associate of his to make the contribution, saying, “in general, you being the center left face of our spending will mean you giving to a lot of woke shit for transactional purposes.”
The unnamed associate tasked with making the donation was, according to the indictment, uncomfortable with the request to make the contribution in his name but ultimately did, reasoning that there was not anyone “trusted at FTX (who was) bi/gay” who could make the contribution instead.
Balint, who is openly gay, benefited in the closing weeks of her hotly contested primary campaign from a million-dollar advertising blitz carried out by LGBTQ Victory Fund, a hybrid political action committee and super PAC. Only after the primary election was it revealed by Seven Days that FTX executive Nishad Singh had bankrolled the victory fund spending.
Bankman-Fried and Singh also personally donated thousands of dollars to Balint. All told, they and their associates contributed at least $26,100 directly to her campaign, VTDigger reported in December. The Vermont Democratic Party and U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., also benefited from the crypto CEO’s largesse.
Balint declined a request Thursday for an interview with VTDigger, but her campaign manager, Natalie Silver, confirmed Balint’s cooperation with federal authorities.
“The campaign is committed to fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s investigation of Mr. Bankman-Fried and FTX,” Silver said in a written statement Thursday. “We have been in communication with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and are fully supporting their investigation.”
Silver reiterated what she and her boss have said for months: “The Balint Campaign has never had any contact with Mr. Bankman-Fried and has never solicited donations from him or his FTX associates. The campaign has no knowledge of how Mr. Bankman-Fried’s political contributions were solicited or given.”
Silver added that, in compliance with federal campaign finance law, the campaign “does not communicate or coordinate with SuperPACS in any way.”
Bankman-Fried is facing a litany of financial crimes charges — including money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud — following the collapse of FTX last fall. He is also accused of large-scale campaign finance fraud by way of stealing customer dollars and distributing them to associates to make donations in excess of contribution limits.
In recent months, FTX and its former executives have been seeking to recover those campaign funds from their recipients. Silver revealed Thursday that Balint’s campaign received a letter on Feb. 7 from FTX debtors requesting a refund of their political contributions.
“FTX reach(ed) out and said we owed a particular amount with no explanation how they arrived at the amount, who gave the money, or the dates at which if was given,” Silver wrote in an email Thursday afternoon, not specifying the amount of money requested. “It felt hastily done and frankly, did not seem like a legitimate request.”
In a follow-up phone call, Silver said that the campaign did not return any money and is waiting for guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice on how to proceed. “We would like to get rid of the money as quickly as possible,” Silver said.
“We are just keeping the funds we believe were given to us from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s associates and himself. We are keeping it in our sequestered account awaiting DOJ guidance on what to do,” Silver continued. “But we very much are looking to get this money back to the people who were harmed by this alleged fraud and are really hoping that the U.S. Attorney’s Office can get to the bottom of what happened so that we can move forward.”
