“Disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly paid former President Bill Clinton roughly $250,000 to give a speech at his Crypto Bahamas Conference in April 2022, according to a Thursday report from the New York Post (NYP).
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton on the same stage (and SBF.) You don’t see that very often these days, eh? pic.twitter.com/Vt5pn6egHn
— Dan Keeler (@dankeeler) April 28, 2022
Bankman-Fried’s conference featured Clinton alongside other world leaders and top crypto executives. Not long after, Bill and Hillary Clinton invited Bankman-Fried to speak at the 2022 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in September, the NYP reported.
How Sam Bankman-Fried’s ties with the Clintons helped him dupe investors https://t.co/ZuIAhCzt0k pic.twitter.com/3iCarFc5Zm
— New York Post (@nypost) January 19, 2023
CGI is a philanthropic conference run by the Clinton Foundation. Bankman-Fried’s headshot is featured on the conference’s website next to other prominent names, such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Melinda French Gates. Bankman-Fried’s name was also included in a press release leading up to CGI.
The Clintons enabled Bankman-Fried to grow his reputation among prominent politicians and investors, the NYP reported. He was reportedly connected to the couple through former Clinton aide Michael Kives, whose venture capital fund, K5 Global, allegedly received a $300 million investment from Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.
“Kives (r), had ties to both the entertainment world and the political one. Prior to spending 15 years at CAA, he worked for former President Bill Clinton and also for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Washington office. In recent years, he has married the two by becoming a player in the Democratic fundraiser scene in Los Angeles and has hosted events at his Hollywood home. Hollywood Reporter, 2/26/2018 (Credit: public domain)
Bankman-Fried was the Democratic party’s seventh largest donor in the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to watchdog group OpenSecrets. He spent north of $37 million for Democrats in primaries and general elections and donated smaller sums to Republican campaigns, OpenSecrets shows.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/19/2023) (Archive)