Bankrupt Crypto Firm FTX Wants Political Contributions Back

Carrick Flynn, a favorite of Sam Bankman-Fried, resurfaces—to correct this article.

Carrick Flynn in a campaign photo. (ADB.PHOTOGRAPHIX 503-680-7687)

FTX Trading Ltd., the bankrupt cryptocurrency firm, wants politicians and political action committees to return all the millions that founder Sam Bankman-Fried donated to them when he was flying high.

The company and its debtors are sending “confidential messages” to candidates and committees that got money from FTX, Bankman-Fried, and officers of the company, FTX said in a statement. It wants the money by end of this month.

“To the extent such payments are not returned voluntarily, the FTX Debtors reserve the right to commence actions before the bankruptcy court to require the return of such payments, with interest accruing from the date any action is commenced,” FTX said.

Donating the money to charity is not an option, FTX said.

“Recipients are cautioned that making a payment or donation to a third party (including a charity) in the amount of any payment received from a FTX Contributor does not prevent the FTX Debtors from seeking recovery,” FTX said.

FTX, now run by bankruptcy specialist John Jay Ray III, is seeking to claw back expenditures made before the company’s collapse to pay debtors and depositors who are out billions because FTX failed.

Among the largest recipients of money from Bankman-Fried was a independent political action committee called Protect Our Future PAC, which, in turn, spent $10,452,673 promoting the candidacy of Carrick Flynn, according to records gathered by OpenSecrets. Flynn, a political novice, ran to represent Oregon’s 6th U.S. Congressional District. Flynn got clobbered in the Democratic primary by Andrea Salinas, who went on to win the seat in the general election.

In an email sent to WW to correct this story, Flynn, who has been invisible in Oregon since his loss, said: “The funds you are writing about were independent expenditures, not contributions to my campaign, so there is no money for my campaign to return. Sam Bankman-Fried’s Protecting Our Future made independent expenditure-funded ad buys hyping my and others’ campaigns around the country. (I helped write part of Biden’s pandemic prevention plan and one of my platforms was on pandemic prevention, so I have every reason to believe the PAC’s stated reason for supporting my candidacy—pandemic prevention—was accurate.) Due to campaign finance laws, I had no contact with them on this spending.”

Bankman-Fried made a direct contribution of $2,900 to Carrick Flynn for Oregon in March 2022, according to federal records.

A more direct FTX beneficiary was the Democratic Party of Oregon, which got $500,000 from FTX director of engineering Nishad Singh. Federal prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried broke campaign finance laws by making donations in other people’s names.

Brad Martin, executive director of the Democratic Party of Oregon, declined to say whether the party would return the donation. “Thanks for reaching out, but no additional comments at this time,” Martin said in an email.

Until recently, the DPO had almost $500,000 in its account, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. Now, it has just $151,653.29.

(An earlier version of this story implied that Flynn may have some responsibility for the money Bankman-Fried spent to promote his campaign. WW regrets the error.)



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