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Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

#41
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike CZ, who made Trump and his family hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, SBF has absolutely nothing to offer Trump. He's broke and a complete outcast. Ross Ulbricht became a cause celebre among libertarians, but SBF was always genuinely despised by pretty much everyone.

Don't be a clown. If SBF was out of jail he could raise a twenty billion dollar fund tomorrow. His Anthropic investment alone would give him credibility. If it hadn't been liquidated for pennies FTX would have been one of the best performing funds of all time, even with the theft and mismanagement.

> FTX would have been one of the best performing funds of all time

Ponzi schemes often have that feature. Right up until the bottom completely falls out.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

#42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike CZ, who made Trump and his family hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, SBF has absolutely nothing to offer Trump. He's broke and a complete outcast. Ross Ulbricht became a cause celebre among libertarians, but SBF was always genuinely despised by pretty much everyone.

Don't be a clown. If SBF was out of jail he could raise a twenty billion dollar fund tomorrow. His Anthropic investment alone would give him credibility. If it hadn't been liquidated for pennies FTX would have been one of the best performing funds of all time, even with the theft and mismanagement.

I highly doubt investors would be flocking to give their money to a convicted fraudster. And I would be surprised if he wasn’t still banned from starting a company by the SEC.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

#44

Do pardons require a full confession?

From what I recall last time I looked into it, sort of by current legal theory.

A pardon does not automatically require a confession (though it could be part of the terms), however blanket pardons remove the ability to plead the 5th on the topic if subpoenaed as a witness. The 5th precludes being forced to testify against yourself, but if the government has declared it not a crime then you can’t testify against yourself even if you wanted to.

From what I recall, non-global pardons still maintained some level of 5th Amendment protections. Ie you were pardoned for A, but talking about A might reveal you did B, so you could still potentially testify against yourself.

Iirc, non-global pardons usually come with a stipulation like “must testify that or about…” because of this.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be a clown. If SBF was out of jail he could raise a twenty billion dollar fund tomorrow. His Anthropic investment alone would give him credibility. If it hadn't been liquidated for pennies FTX would have been one of the best performing funds of all time, even with the theft and mismanagement.

> FTX would have been one of the best performing funds of all time Ponzi schemes often have that feature. Right up until the bottom completely falls out.

It wasn't a Ponzi scheme. You really need to read up before commenting. It was a wildly successful fund he used as a slush fund for other projects. There's no mechanism for FTX to collapse unless Anthropic among other projects collapses to zero.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

#48

> Trump has pardoned a number of people who have donated large sums to his political campaigns. It will be interesting to see how he'll be able to spin his well-documented donations to Democratic causes and sell that to the current administration: "He personally gave at least $40 million to politicians and political action committees ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, mostly to Democrats and liberal-leaning groups,…

You can call Trump "America's Hitler" and end up the VP pick. All that matters is bending the knee.

The question is, if he would see it really as an insult. Hitler was pretty successful in the beginning and did rise to the top against many odds and breaking conventions. (unlike Trump, he was not born rich, though)

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

#50
post #21

This story doesn't mean anything. SBF has been "seeking" a pardon for over a year now. There's no due process consideration for obtaining a pardon; "applying" for one doesn't get you anything more than asking for one on Twitter would --- given the current administration, asking on Twitter might get you further! I don't think SBF's case is slipping the administration's mind.

Maybe you apply to Trump's sons with a proposal as to how to enrich their crypto ventures?
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