Democratic PAC Returns Major Donation from Cryptocurrency Giant FTX amid Controversy

Due to the ongoing FTX contagion and negative press, the Democratic Senate Majority Political Action Committee (PAC) is seeking to return $3 million in political contributions from former FTX executives. The sum of $2 million was given by Nishad Singh, the previous engineering director at FTX. The former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), also contributed $1 million for the 2022 election. The super PAC has spent over $160 million in total to support Democratic candidates for Senate seats.

Tuesday, a PAC spokeswoman told CNBC the following:

According to the statement, “Senate Majority PAC previously set aside the contribution amounts from Sam Bankman-Fried and Nishad Singh in response to the serious allegations against FTX with the intention of returning the funds as soon as we receive the appropriate guidance from federal law enforcement officials based on their legal proceedings.

Sam Bankman-Fried has made numerous PACs that support the Democratic Party, such as the House Majority PAC, Protect Our Future, and Future Forward USA, millions of dollars in contributions. Future Forward USA received more than $5 million from Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading company founded by SBF. Then Future Forward USA put millions of dollars into Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

According to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) report, Bankman-Fried reportedly contributed $6 million to the House Majority PAC in April, which raises money for Democratic candidates for the lower house. According to spokeswoman CJ Warnke, the PAC “will send funds in question wherever authorities instruct us.”

Over $40 million was donated to the midterm elections by Sam Bankman-Fried, the majority of which went to Democrats. During the midterm elections in 2022, Singh donated $8 million to federal candidates. There are no active legal proceedings pending against the former FTX director of engineering.

Final Reflections
According to NBC News, Sam Bankman-Fried also decided not to challenge his extradition and will be coming back to the United States as soon as this Wednesday. Last year, FTX gave $2 billion to Binance in addition to giving to politicians. They might also need to pay the money back.