Democratic Rep Took Donations From Bankman-Fried, Lobbied Against Crypto Regulation, And Now Blames SEC For FTX’s Collapse

Oh, sweet irony, how you consistently amuse us…

Today’s episode of ‘consequences are best served cold’ comes from Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, who according the Daily Caller received $40,300 from Sam Bankman-Fried, ex-CEO of FTX, and his brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried.

Now, Torres is calling for an investigation of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for “failing to properly regulate the crypto exchange.” He has written a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting the probe.

But just months ago, he was one of 8 members of congress to sign a letter calling into question the SEC’s authority to request disclosure of information by crypto companies. 

Gabriel Bankman-Fried had donated more than $31,000 to Torres For Congress, Torres Victory Fund and the Torres-affiliated La Bamba PAC just two weeks prior, the report says. 

Torres responded to the Washington Examiner earlier this month, telling the paper that he donated the cash he received from Bankman-Fried “to a local charity to assist with holiday food distributions to families in need.”

Prior to the March letter, the SEC was asking several crypto exchanges for more information about how they were managing customers deposits – information that could have obviously unearthed issues at FTX long before its blowup. 

NEW this morning — Rep. @RitchieTorres (D-NY) calls on the Government Accountability Office (@USGAO) to investigate the SEC’s “failure to protect the investing public from the egregious mismanagement and malfeasance of @FTX_Official” pic.twitter.com/BdT7ZVCM7X

— Alexander Grieve (@AlexanderGrieve) December 7, 2022

Now that FTX has made a complete fool out of Torres and other Democrats that it donated money to, Torres’ tone has changed significantly. 

“The SEC chose to dedicate scarce time and resources to investigating Kim Kardashian, rather than opaque crypto exchanges, leaving many to question whether the commission is operating efficiently and apolitically and whether it has its priorities in the right place,” he wrote in his letter. 

“If the SEC had done the due diligence of thoroughly investigating the financials of FTX, there would have been a greater likelihood of exposing the crypto exchange for what it truly is: a house of cars [sic] built on monopoly money printed out of thin air.”

Yeah, if only certain members of Congress weren’t questioning the SEC’s ability to “do the due diligence” in the first place…unreal.