Bankman-Fried’s claim paints an even more perplexing picture of a man who positioned himself as an ethical billionaire who was very publicly the second largest donor to Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections, but was donating just as much to the Republicans behind closed doors.
The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried, who’s reportedly still living in the Bahamas, said that he was able to make his donations anonymously because of Citizens United, a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that declared unlimited political donations were a form of speech and should be protected by the First Amendment. The case has allowed millions of dollars of so-called “dark money” to enter the political system without disclosures on who’s making the payments.
“[My Republican donations were] not generally known, because despite Citizens United being literally the highest profile Supreme Court case of the decade and the thing everyone talks about when they talk about campaign finance, for some reason, in practice, no one can possibly fathom the idea that someone, in practice, actually gave dark,” Bankman-Fried explained on the phone call.
Bankman-Fried was very public about giving to Democrats, even appearing on NBC’s
Meet the Press Reports to discuss his left-leaning donations with host Chuck Todd before the 2022 midterms. But Bankman-Fried’s donations to Republicans were done secretly, according to the former crypto billionaire, because most reporters are “super liberal.”
“All my Republican donations were dark. And the reason, was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to a Republican because they’re all super liberal. And I didn’t want to have that fight so I just made all the Republican ones dark,” Bankman-Fried said on the call, claiming he was the “second or third biggest” donor to Republicans in 2022.
Right-wing media figures have spent the past two weeks raising questions about Bankman-Fried’s donation of roughly $40 million to Democrats, even asking if they skewed the result of the 2022 midterms.
Will all the Republicans who received dark money from this guy going to give the money he gave them back?