As per an excerpt from an upcoming book on Sunday, imprisoned former Sam Bankman-Fried contemplated paying former US President Donald Trump to not run for 2020 re-elections.
In a Washington Post excerpt, Michael Lewis, author of “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon,” said Bankman-Fried had intended to give $15 million to $30 million to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell to take out the “Trumpier” candidates in the Senate races at the time.
“On a separate front, he explained to me, as the plane descended into Washington, he was exploring the legality of paying Donald Trump himself not to run for president,” Lewis wrote.
“His team had somehow created a back channel into the Trump operation and returned with the not terribly Earth-shattering news that Donald Trump might indeed have his price: $5 billion. Or so Sam was told by his team.”
The article did not go into detail about why Bankman-Fried, the creator of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, did not proceed with the plans.
Mark Botnick, a spokesperson for Bankman-Fried, refused to comment on the article, while representatives for Trump didn’t respond right away to a Reuters request for comment.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of theft and conspiracy related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022.
He faces a statutory maximum punishment of 110 years in jail; however, any sentence would be determined by the judge handling the case based on a variety of considerations, and he would very certainly receive significantly less.
The publication of Lewis’ book coincides with the opening of Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial this week.