Sam Bankman-Fried funded more than 90% of a leading DC ethics group's political arm in 2021

• Embattled "crypto king" Sam Bankman-Fried lavished his fortune on a variety of causes.
• One of those was the political arm of the Campaign Legal Center, a prominent DC watchdog group.
• Insider has learned that Bankman-Fried's donations funded more than 90% of the political arm in 2021.

Embattled crypto financier Sam Bankman-Fried almost single-handedly funded a prominent Washington ethics organization's political arm in 2021.

Bankman-Fried donated $760,000 to the Campaign Legal Center's action fund in 2021, according to a spokesperson for the organization. Tax filings turned over to Insider confirm that Bankman-Fried's donation amounted to more than 95% of CLC Action's revenue for that year and roughly 94% of its expenses.

Insider previously reported that Bankman-Fried donated more than $2.5 million to the Campaign Legal Center and its affiliate organizations since 2021. The $760,000 donation was part of two major pledges he made to CLC Action, the other being a $300,000 gift in 2022.

Bankman-Fried's lavish spending helped support CLC Action, a 501(c)(4) "social welfare organization," as well as the ethics watchdog's tax-exempt charitable arm. Under its action group, the Campaign Legal Center filed a number of prominent lawsuits in 2021. One of those suits, filed on behalf of the gun violence group founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, alleged that the National Rifle Association engaged in a campaign finance scheme to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

 

Public scrutiny over Bankman-Fried's sizable donations has intensified since the Securities and Exchange Commission indicted him for defrauding investors in FTX, the cryptocurrency platform that Bankman-Fried cofounded. His donations touched everything from political campaigns to media organizations and nonprofits around the world. Bankman-Fried is also facing multiple charges related to campaign finance violations.

FTX and Bankman-Fried's influence grew so rapidly that FTX reportedly signed a $135 million agreement to secure the naming rights to the home of the NBA's Miami Heat. Fortune Magazine asked: would Bankman-Fried be the "The Next Warren Buffett?"

The Campaign Legal Center initially told Insider that it could not return the money Bankman-Fried donated since it had already been spent. The organization later reversed itself when Brendan Quinn, a spokesman for the group, told The New York Times that $2.5 million had been put into a separate account "until instructions are received from bankruptcy courts."

Quinn on Thursday referred Insider to the organization's previous statement that decried Bankman-Fried's alleged conduct.

"We cannot change the past, but we can change the future," Quinn said in the previous statement. "CLC will now move forward, continuing our decades long work to ensure every eligible voter can participate in and affect the democratic process."