Senate Unanimously Rejects Clemency for FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried

The US Senate passed a resolution on Wednesday declaring that Sam Bankman Fried should never receive a presidential pardon or sentence commutation, approving the measure without a single objection.

How the Resolution Passed

The measure cleared through unanimous consent, meaning it advanced without any senator raising an objection.

It was introduced on June 17 by Senators Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, who lead the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee. Lummis, widely seen as the crypto industry’s strongest ally in Congress, said Bankman-Fried “had his day in court.” Gallego’s statement on the matter was blunt: “Keep him locked up.”

Background on the Case

A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on seven counts connected to the collapse of FTX, an exchange prosecutors described as one of the largest financial frauds in US history. American customers lost more than $8 billion. He is not eligible for release until around 2044.

President Trump said in January he had no intention of pardoning Bankman Fried, even as he granted clemency to other prominent crypto figures, including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht.

How FTX Collapsed

Bankman Fried simultaneously ran FTX, an exchange meant to hold customer funds separately, and Alameda Research, a trading firm he also owned. He funneled billions in FTX customer deposits into Alameda, which used the money for trades, venture investments, political contributions, and real estate purchases in the Bahamas. Internal FTX software exempted Alameda from rules that would have otherwise forced it to cover its losses like any other trader.

The scheme unraveled after Alameda’s balance sheet became public in November 2022, revealing that most of its listed assets were FTT, a token FTX had created itself. When Binance announced it would sell its FTT holdings days later, the token’s price collapsed. Customers rushed to withdraw funds that were no longer there, and FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022.