Sam Bankman-Fried is talking like a man who has discovered, a little late, that power in Washington tends to answer its own phone.
His appeal of a 25-year prison sentence has gotten off to a shaky start at the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan, and his newly active X posts read like a trial run for a message aimed squarely at President Donald Trump, the Daily Mail reported.
It is a sharp pivot for a onetime Democratic rainmaker who gave $5 million to Joe Biden’s election run and another $40 million to Democratic candidates in the 2022 midterms, before his spectacular downfall in 2022 amid the $8 billion collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.
Bankman-Fried co-founded FTX in 2019 in Hong Kong, and by 2022 — after moving operations to The Bahamas — the exchange was valued at $32 billion before it crashed.
The story of FTX was sold as modern finance with a beach view, complete with a Crypto Bahamas event in 2022 that drew major names like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, alongside celebrity attendees.
It also came with old-school excess: The company spent more than $300 million on property in The Bahamas, and Bankman-Fried lived in a $40 million penthouse at The Albany — 11,500 square feet, private pool, a grand piano, and the kind of luxury that always looks better before the subpoenas arrive.
In November, a spike in withdrawals exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX accounts, forcing bankruptcy. Investigators later said FTX secretly funneled billions in customer deposits to Alameda Research, and when Alameda’s risky bets failed, it could not repay FTX.
Bankman-Fried was arrested on Dec. 12 and taken to Fox Hill prison before being extradited to the United States for a New York trial.
In 2023, he was sentenced on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, drawing a 25-year term.
Bankman-Fried’s legal team argues the case was “fundamentally unfair,” alleging bias and rulings by the judge that prevented a full defense.
Shapiro said the judge “allowed the prosecution to present this morally compelling tale but prevented the defense from showing that the story wasn't true,” adding, “The defense was cut off at the knees by the judge's rulings.”
Judge Barrington Parker was not buying it, saying, “From my reading of the record (there was) very substantial evidence of guilt,” and reminding the courtroom that victims being repaid generally is not a defense in fraud cases.
The trial judge was Lewis Kaplan, who also presided over E. Jean Carroll’s defamation cases against Trump.
Trump has appealed both verdicts, and Bankman-Fried’s lawyers appear to be betting that arguments about courtroom fairness will “chime” with Trump’s broader complaints about legal unfairness.
Hernandez was convicted of drug trafficking-related charges in 2022 and given 45 years in Manhattan in 2024, accused of importing cocaine into the United States.
After Trump pardoned him earlier this month, Honduras issued an arrest warrant days after his release, accusing him of money laundering and fraud.
Still, Bankman-Fried wrote that Hernandez was “framed” by “Biden’s DEA,” and argued, “Biden's DEA wanted to land a 'big fish'; since Hernandez had already arrested the actual narcos, that left Hernandez himself as the target.”
Trump said Hernandez was “set-up” by the Biden administration and “treated very harshly and unfairly,” giving Bankman-Fried a ready-made script for his own fight.
Bankman-Fried also replied “100” to an X post from Roger Stone defending the pardon and blaming the “Biden DOJ,” then added days later, “President Trump knows that, when you weaponize the DOJ, you start putting innocent people in prison.”
For a man who once reportedly considered “paying” Trump to drop out of contention, the sudden reverence looks less like conviction and more like strategy — especially as his parents, Stanford law professors Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, reportedly have been laying groundwork to approach Trump for a potential pardon petition.
