Just when you thought House Democrat, and easily one of the smartest people in Congress, Maxine Waters couldn’t humiliate herself and outrage the peasantry any further with her white-glove treatment of Sam Bankman-Fried, whose fraud was behind the largest ponzi scheme since Bernie Madoff, she has bested herself once more.
Waters, the House Financial Services Committee Chair, is not planning on subpoenaing Sam Bankman-Fried, or is that Sam Bankman-Freed – to testify at the upcoming December 13th Congressional hearing about the collapse of FTX.
“Waters informed committee members of her decision at a private meeting Tuesday with Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler on Capitol Hill,” CNBC reported late in the day on Wednesday.
Waters apparently said “she wants committee staff try to convince Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify”.
And if he disagrees? Well… oops, but that’s what all those tens of millions in donations to Democrats were for. Or is that billions?
That’s just the publicly disclosed number. His actual support of Dem elections is probably over $1B. The money went somewhere, so where did it go?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 3, 2022
For those still confused, one month after the historic implosion, Bankman-Fried appears to be getting away with one of the most blatant heists in history and still has not been held to account by any regulatory agency, other than what appeared to be some perfunctory palm greasing that may have taken place in the Bahamas.
Baffled by why there has been no consequences for Bankman-Fried, even while Democrats and the Biden administration perpetually rail against billionaires and the upper class? Well, there’s the small detail that Bankman-Fried and FTX associates gave $300,000 to the very same House Committee members that are investigating him, per the Washington Free Beacon:
Bankman-Fried and his co-founders at FTX contributed $300,351 to nine members of the House Financial Services Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records. Some of the largest contributions were to Democrats on the committee’s Digital Assets Working Group, which worked on regulation of the crypto industry.
Recall that Maxine Waters has been already widely lampooned and ridiculed for the gentle treatment she has given Bankman-Fried thus far. In an endearing sounding Tweet to SBF on December 2, 2022, asking him to testify in front of Conrgess, she wrote: “We appreciate that you’ve been candid in your discussions about what happened at FTX. Your willingness to talk to the public will help the company’s customers, investors, and others. To that end, we would welcome your participation in our hearing on the 13th.”
The public was not amused by Waters’ approach.
“If you don’t arrest him I will have lost all faith in our government being the tiniest bit of just,” bitcoin advocate Dan Held responded to Waters.
“Rep. Waters, we appreciate that you’re holding a hearing on the 13th, and we look forward to substantive fact-finding about what happened at FTX. I am certain that factfinding will show that SBF has not, in fact, been candid in his discussions. He committed fraud, full stop,” commented Lawyer Jake Chervinsky.
And then Bankman-Fried himself humiliated Waters by publicly shunning her offer to testify, telling Waters he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to testify on December 13th.
“Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain,” he wrote to her on Twitter.
Rep. Waters, and the House Committee on Financial Services:
Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain.
I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify. https://t.co/c0P8yKlyQt
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 4, 2022
And to think, SBF dodging the question of an appearance before the House on December 13 came even after Waters blew Bankman-Fried a kiss…
CAUGHT: Maxine Waters appears to blow a kiss at FTX’s chief fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried at a Congressional hearing while the cameras were still rolling
She’s the one who’s supposed to grill SBF next month?
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 18, 2022
We guess the ole’ Willie Brown treatment doesn’t quite work with the charm it used to. Maybe Maxine can have Kamala Harris stand in for her next time.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/07/2022 – 18:00
