Consult with an attorney associated with President Trump. Reach out to a Washington lobbyist. Sitting for a prison interview with Tucker Carlson.
Sam Bankmanfried, a disgraceful cryptocurrency mogul who was once the top Democrat donor, has embarked on a long-term filming campaign to secure pardon from the Trump administration, six people with knowledge of the issue said.
The effort has been driven by a small group of Bankman Fleet supporters, including parents Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, who are trying to escape the 25-year prison sentence he received after doing laundry in fraud, conspiracy and the collapse of the code exchange.
There is no indication that the banker and his allies have reached Trump directly or discussed a potential pardon with his White House advisor.
But the push appears to be intended to harness Trump's trading approach to generosity. The President personally supports those seeking pardons who have connections with him, both through his lawyers and lobbyists, and argues prosecutors' misconduct that reflects his own complaints about the case against him.
As part of a generous effort, Bankman and Freed, a longtime active Democrat, a law professor at Stanford University, are consulting with Arizona lawyer Corey Langfer, who worked in Trump's 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The politically connected businessmen and Washington lobbyists have also received outreach from intermediaries who claim to be Bankman's allies, said the three with knowledge of the situation.
His supporters have also taken steps that appear to have been calculated to seek favor from Trump in a smaller way. Bankman, who has maintained a low profile since the collapse of FTX, co-authored the opinion last month in the Washington Post, claiming that Trump's plans for sovereign wealth funds will “help dramatically increase corporate productivity.”
Bankmanfried's allies believe they can point to flaws in his prosecution, which resonates with Trump. “The prosecutors have spoken about FTX and Sambankmanfried, and that's not true,” Langfer said. “If the public knows the perfect story, they'll see it differently.”
When contacted by phone Thursday, Freed declined to comment. Bloomberg News reported in January that Bankman Fried's parents met with people on Trump's orbit and worked towards a possible pardon.
A White House representative declined to comment.
So far, pushes don't seem to gain traction, people with knowledge of the matter said. The only indication that Bankman Fried could be moving forward came this week when he attracted Carlson and an audience nearby Trump. On Thursday, the former Fox News host published a 43-minute interview with Bankmanfried, recorded over a video call.
Speaking from Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, where he had been running for the past 18 months, Bankmanfried wore a dark brown prison outfit over a gray T-shirt and sipped from a white mug. He made an indirect pitch to Trump, claiming that at the time of his arrest he was closer to Washington Republicans than Democrats. He expressed cautious optimism about how Trump will unleash the crypto industry.
“It helps to change security guards,” he said.
The Prison Bureau has strict rules about who can communicate with inmates and which channels can be used. After an interview with Carlson was published, Bankmanfried was placed in solitary confinement, said someone who was described in the situation.
A representative from the Prison Bureau said “This particular interview has not been approved.” She declined to comment on whether Bankmanfried, who turned 33 on Thursday, was in solitary confinement.
Three years ago, Bankman Fried was a billionaire crypto executive who hobnobbed Tom Brady and Katy Perry, donating tens of millions of dollars to the Democrats.
Then, in November 2022, FTX collapsed. Federal prosecutors accused Bankman of stealing $8 billion from clients and committing fraud against the company's investors and lenders. In 2023, he was convicted after a month's trial and later sentenced to 25 years.
Bankmanfried maintains his innocence. He filed an appeal in September, claiming that the judge who oversaw the case was biased against him.
The pardon efforts represent an even more daring attempt to overturn his beliefs. Bankmanfried doesn't fit the profile of those Trump instinctively forgives. The former code giant not only donated to the Democrats, but also opposed Trump. His beliefs were celebrated by Elon Musk, the president's close advisor.
Still, Trump has shown a willingness to grant tolerance to those whose causes resonated with him or who have access to the circle of Republican allies. During the election campaign, he was enthusiastically supported by crypto executives and urged them to act on several policy priorities. Among them is the pardon of Ross Ulbricht, a cult hero of the crypto world who was sentenced to life in prison to run the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Trump issued the pardon within days of his inauguration.
Since then, Trump has taken further steps to boost the industry, inviting the creation of a national cryptocurrency reserve and executives to the White House for his first “Crypto Summit” on Friday.
These conversations are unlikely to help Bankmanfried, a widely responsive person in the crypto world. However, his allies believe that elements of his case and some of the people involved can catch Mr. Trump's eye.
Lewis A. Kaplan, the judge who led the trial of Bankman Freedy, oversaw the honour and loss cases brought against Trump by writer Jean Carroll, who accused the rape president. (The ju-degrees ultimately ordered Trump to pay Carroll more than $80 million.) And the lead prosecutor in the FTX case was Daniel Sussone, who resigned from the New York federal prosecutor's office last month after refusing to file charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams despite an order from Washington officers.
In court, Bankman Fleet's lawyers alleged that Judge Kaplan unfairly prevented him from presenting evidence that was inconsistent with Sasson's prosecution. That argument is at the heart of Bankman Fried's case of generosity, said someone familiar with the effort.
For months, Bankman and Freed consulted with Langfer, a former prosecutor who filed a lawsuit on behalf of Trump's campaign to challenge the 2020 election vote count in Arizona.
Langfer rescinded the election case when it became clear that the outcome of the lawsuit was insufficient to tilt the state's results. In a 2022 radio interview, Trump expressed misfortune with his approach.
“When I look at Langfer, I disagree with him as a lawyer,” he said. “I didn't think he was a good lawyer to hire.”
Bankmanfried is slowly re-emerging as a public figure. Last week he posted X for the first time since January 2023, looking back at Trump's layoffs crossing the federal workforce. He argued that it was important to fire people at times.
“There's no point in not doing anything, keeping them, and not doing anything,” he wrote.
The biographical section of the account stated, “SBF Words. Friends share it.” On Thursday, the account posted a link to Carlson's video and thanked her for interviewing her.
The video caused friction among the few remaining supporters of Bankman Fleet. After it was made public, his longtime spokesman, Mark Botnik, resigned. Botnick said he only learned about the interview after it was distributed online. He declined to comment further.
Maggie Haberman contributed the report.
