Beleaguered Crypto Billionaire Was Hobnobbing at White House Just Six Months Ago

A cryptocurrency billionaire facing federal investigation for mishandling customer funds had high-level White House meetings just months ago, as Congress was debating how to regulate his company—and just weeks before he pledged to donate up to $1 billion to Democrats ahead of the midterm campaign.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the owner of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, met on April 22 and May 12 with top Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti, according to White House visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. At the time, FTX was lobbying Congress and federal agencies to shape regulation of the crypto industry.

The meetings are likely to raise questions about the extent to which Bankman-Fried used the promise of political donations to nudge Democrats toward helping his firm. FTX is teetering on the brink of insolvency after announcing it could not fulfill its customers’ withdrawal request due to lack of funds. Bankman-Fried lost nearly all of his $16 billion fortune in the liquidity crunch. And his troubles might get worse. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating whether FTX mishandled customer deposits in order to prop up the 30-year-old entrepreneur’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, according to Bloomberg News.

It is a remarkable fall for Bankman-Fried, who has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s biggest campaign donors. He gave more than $5 million to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, and has given millions more this cycle to the Democratic Party. In early May, between his first two visits to the White House, Bankman-Fried doled out $865,000 to the DNC, according to Federal Election Commission records. Earlier, in March, he cut three checks totalling $66,500 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and later in June he sent $250,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

He said in June, weeks after his most recent White House meeting, that he might give up to $1 billion to support Democrats in the midterms, though he backed away from that pledge in September.

Amid the political spending, Bankman-Fried has led an aggressive lobbying campaign in Washington related to cryptocurrency regulation. He met with Ricchetti, the White House counselor, on April 22 and May 12, according to visitor logs. He met on May 13 with Charlotte Butash, a policy adviser to the White House deputy chief of staff.

Bankman-Fried was accompanied in some of the meetings by Mark Wetjen, the head of policy and regulatory strategy at FTX, who

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