Was SEC Chair Gary Gensler Helping Sam Bankman-Fried Find Legal Loopholes for FTX? Here’s What You Need to Know
Speculation is mounting in the community that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler could have worked with FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried to find legal loopholes the exchange could take advantage of.
The speculation has emerged as ties between Sam Bankman-Fried, his parents Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, and prominent figures at the top level of government and regulatory agencies in the US, have been uncovered in recent days. And to top things off, Bankman-Fried himself is also a major political donor, first and foremost to the Democratic Party.
The rumor mill has in recent days become so intense that Republican Rep. Tom Emmer, known as one of the most crypto-friendly members of the House of Representatives, tweeted that he has received reports that Gary Gensler was helping Bankman-Fried “work on legal loopholes to obtain a regulatory monopoly.”
“We're looking into this,” the crypto-friendly politician added.
A possible explanation for what reports Emmer was referring to is FTX’s acquisition of the US-based crypto lender BlockFi, which already had the necessary regulatory approvals in the US. By acquiring this company, Bankman-Fried may have thought that the regulatory approvals would also extend to FTX, giving the exchange a major advantage of its global rival Binance and others.
Notably, the tweet from Emmer came a day after an article in Fortune revealed that Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, is the leader of a group known as Mind the Gap that raises money from the tech industry for Democrats.
In a 2020 article in The Stanford Daily, Mind the Gap was described as a “secretive Stanford-connected Democratic fundraising group” that funneled more than $20m to Democratic candidates in the 2018
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