Democratic Party of Oregon Finally Repays Mysterious FTX-Related Contribution

The $500,000 check from the bankrupt crytpo firm was the party’s biggest ever. Now its leading members have had to backfill DPO coffers.

GIVING BACK: Gov. Tina Kotek on the campaign trail in the autumn of 2022. (Blake Benard)
By Nigel Jaquiss

Another turn of the screw in the saga of the Democratic Party of Oregon’s largest contribution ever: On July 10, the DPO belatedly regurgitated a $500,000 check it got last year from one of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s top lieutenants.

As The Oregonian first reported, the DPO reeled in $500,000 from a Nevada entity called Prime Trust LLC on Oct. 4, 2022. The party later amended campaign finance reports to identify the source of the money as Nishad Singh, FTX’s director of engineering.

After FTX, then one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency firms, imploded into bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, authorities began trying to claw back political contributions the company and its executives made, sometimes under apparently false names (which can be illegal and is currently the subject of an Oregon Department of Justice investigation).

After months of intrigue, filings with the Oregon secretary of state’s Elections Division show that the DPO transferred $500,000 on July 10 to the U.S. Marshal’s Office, which is acting as the collection agent for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, where FTX’s corpus rests.

The DPO acts as a conduit, raising money and distributing it to candidates, so after the November election cycle ended, it did not have enough money to disgorge the FTX-related cash, nor was it in any hurry to do so.

Cue the state’s leading Democratic elected officials, who dug into their political action committees to allow the DPO to pay the feds. Gov. Tina Kotek, a major beneficiary of 2022 fundraising, contributed $100,000, as did U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer ($50,000), Suzanne Bonamici ($25,000) and Val Hoyle ($15,000) chipped in, and the DPO pulled $122,000 from its federal political action committee.

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