Beto O’Rourke Still Has $100,000 of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Cash: Report

AP Photo, Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo, LM Otero

Disgraced crypto giant Sam Bankman-Fried, a major Democrat donor who also donated some money to a few Republicans, is facing charges of fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations, a fact which has prompted recipients of his dirty money to send it back. Mostly.

But according to a new investigative report from the Washington Free Beacon, perennial Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke still has about a hundred grand in the tainted funds.

O’Rourke was widely praised by the press back November after his campaign announced the return of $1 million that had been donated by the well-connected founder of the now-collapsed crypto exchange FTX. However, that wasn’t the whole story, writes Chuck Ross for the Free Beacon.

A spokesman for O’Rourke said in November that the campaign returned an “unsolicited” $1 million donation that Bankman-Fried gave on Oct. 11. In a story that praised O’Rourke for avoiding the “ethical headache” related to Bankman-Fried’s money, O’Rourke spokesman Chris Evans said the refund was issued on Nov. 4, before the election and “prior to the news stories that would later come out about the donor.”

But O’Rourke’s latest campaign filing contradicts those assurances. In a report last week, the campaign disclosed a $900,000 refund to Bankman-Fried on Nov. 4. The campaign said it is holding on to the other $100,000 pending the outcome of the investigation of Bankman-Fried, who has been charged with campaign finance violations and fraud related to his cryptocurrency firm, FTX.

O’Rourke spox Chris Evans did not give Free Beacon a comment about the remaining $100,000, but the campaign claims it will be earmarked for “victims of FTX’s collapse.” Which, Free Beacon notes, is not a return of the full donation as they first claimed in November. “The pledge contradicts the campaign’s initial claim that it received and returned Bankman-Fried’s donation before news broke of his wrongdoing,” writes Ross.

O’Rourke also still has a $100,000 contribution from FTX executive Nishad Singh, another major donor to Democrats, reports Ross