FTX bipartisan bribes/donations in dollars or crypto?

Bankman-Fried is a piker in the buying political favor trade.

My art is at Instagram @klonskyart.

To you and me $73 million is a lot of money.

That’s how much money FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried gave to politicians - Republicans and Democrats - during the mid-terms.

Compared to the big boys like Ken Griffin or Richard Uihlein it is really small change.

And Bankman-Fried is a small-time piker.

The problem for Bankman-Fried is that it wasn’t his money to give.

Bankman-Fried has now been arrested for crypto-fraud and running a con job on FTX clients.

As I understand it he’s kind of a Bernie Madoff of crypto-currency.

Now the feds are going after him and the politicians he gave the money to are scrambling.

You could argue that hedge fund king Ken Griffin’s money is the result of criminality on a whole different, monstrous level.

I would agree with you.

But he hasn’t been charged yet. Maybe he never will be.

Griffin is a guy who spent millions to get Darren Bailey successfully nominated in Illinois to run for governor and then moved out of state when Bailey got creamed.

And his out of state move came after spending $50 million to defeat an Illinois constitutional amendment that would have created a fairer tax system.

And which would tax Griffin more.

As for Richard Uihlein.

Packaging supplies magnate Richard Uihlein was reportedly one of the biggest financial supporters of the rally. He contributed $4 million in recent years to the Tea Party Patriots, one of the partners in organizing the (insurrectionist) rally. Uihlein’s foundation has also supported Turning Point Action, whose leader, Charlie Kirk, claimed to have sent “80+ buses” to the rally.

But back to Bankman-Fried.

Those congressional races now are history. But not the race for mayor of Chicago, where U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is running for a new job and has $200,000 in crypto baggage to explain.

The question: How and why did a PAC heavily funded by Bankman-Fried—he gave Protect the Future PAC at least $27 million before his company hit the rocks—come to spend $199,853 on ads and mailers this spring urging a vote for Garcia in a Democratic congressional primary race in which he was unopposed? Are Chicago voters really expected to believe that the money sort of fell off a truck and had absolutely nothing to do with Garcia’s service on the House Financial Services Committee, which regulates crypto?

Other Illinois Democrats who got money from Bankman-Fried include Dick Durbin, Jesse Jackson Jr., and downstate Republican Rodney Davis.

You don’t have to be politically naive to struggle with the idea that Congressman Chuy Garcia got money from crypto huckster Bankman-Fried when he was running for Congress unopposed and is on the committee that oversees the business of Bankman-Fried.

To his credit, Chuy gave some of the money back after it got exposed in the media.

It reminded me of when Cook County Democratic Chair and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle got caught during the last mayor’s race receiving $10,000 from the crooked 14th Ward Alder Eddie Burke and once she got busted for it, returned it.

Disclosure: I was a big supporter of Chuy when he ran against Rahm for Mayor and when he ran for Congress in my district.

Of course my support doesn’t translate into huge dollars. It was more like knocking on doors and attending fund-raising events like the one up on Northwest Highway where this pic was taken.

I look that that because it was after a few beers.

And a further disclosure is that I supported Lori Lightfoot for mayor last time and I support her again this time.

My support comes with little in the way of money.

Not dollars.

Not crypto.

I still don’t even understand crypto.

Do politicians even accept donations in crypto?