“The case did not, however, permit organizations to act as pass-throughs for others’ contributions, or to make independent expenditures while keeping secret their own contributors,” CREW’s complaint adds.
Asked for comment on the complaint, Bankman-Fried, in a statement emailed to CNBC, said, “I will always support constructive, bipartisan lawmakers and candidates who support the causes I believe in — chief among them, prevention of the next pandemic.”
An FEC spokeswoman said, “We cannot comment on pending or potential complaints before the agency.”
Anyone can file a complaint with the FEC if they suspect a violation of federal election campaign laws. If the FEC determines a violation occurred, potential outcomes “can range from a letter reiterating compliance obligations to a conciliation agreement, which may include a monetary civil penalty,” according to the commission’s webpage.
CREW’s complaint notes that Bankman-Fried was, “until recently, a crypto-currency billionaire and known top Democratic contributor,” who “admitted during a recent public interview that he gave ‘dark’ money contributions to support Republicans in federal elections in the past cycle.”
In that interview, he suggested that those donations would make him one of the largest donors to Republicans in the United States.
The complaint contains a link to the Nov. 16 interview Bankman-Fried gave to Tiffany Fong, who posted the discussion on her YouTube channel.
“I donated to both parties. I donated about the same amount to both parties this year,” he said in that interview.
“That was not generally known, because despite [the Supreme Court decision known as] Citizens United being literally the highest profile Supreme Court case of the decade and the thing everyone talks about when they talk about campaign finance, for some reason, in practice, no one could possibly fathom the idea that someone in practice actually gave dark,” he added.
“All my Republican donations were dark,” Bankman-Fried went on to say, the complaint noted. “The reason was not the regulatory reason.”
“It’s because reporters freak the f— out if you donate to a Republican because they’re all super liberal. And I didn’t want to have that fight,” he said. “So, I made all the Republican ones dark. But, whatever, [indiscernible] the second or third biggest Republican donor this year as well.”
In the interview, Bankman-Fried said that those contributions were “all for the primary.”
“I didn’t give anything to the general election because I don’t give a s— about the general election,” he said. “It’s all that matters. Like, it’s the primaries where the good candidates against bad candidates.”
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/08/ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-hit-with-campaign-finance-complaint.html