Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/sam-bankman-fried-applies-for-a-pardon-from-trump/

by pseudolus • 1 month ago

101 48 1 month ago

jihadjihad• 1 month ago

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, making him the second overall top donor to Democrats, only behind George Soros, according to the Center for Responsive Politics" [0].

0: https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...

bdcravens• 1 month ago

By finding a way to get at least $41 million to the other side

cosmicgadget• 1 month ago

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

lukan• 1 month ago

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)

Animats2• 1 month ago

Does the White House take Visa for pardons?

Tangurena2• 1 month ago

Staff working for Giuliani reported that pardons cost $2,000,000.

raised_hand• 1 month ago

that's it? seems low

andrewstuart• 1 month ago

Its volume pricing.

legitster• 1 month ago

It's important to remember that Trump was actually relatively cash poor when he ran for president.

If you get rid of all his insane statements about his own wealth, his entire fortune boils down to a skyscraper, a resort, and a handful of piddling licensing deals. His realistic net worth was probably closer to, $500 million and the annual discretionary free cash flow closer to $20 - $40 million.

So, yeah. A single $2 million dollar ... erm... "emolument" would be something like 5-10% of his annual cashflow for a year. He might have taken over a 100 of these - that's a substantial boon!

asdff• 1 month ago

If it were that cheap Sean Combs would be a free man. They probably increase the expected bribe based on your perceived ability to pay.

mattbillenstein2• 1 month ago

It's probably as much about PR as it is about money - Puffy is a heavy lift on the PR side...

Kapura• 1 month ago

you forget how racist trump is

Snafuh• 1 month ago

Apparently his net worth peaked at a billion dollars. And he only got 4 years. By the time a pardon would be arranged, he'd almost be out again.

SBF has more than 20 years left.

beastman82• 1 month ago

Unless he's the only rich person on earth who can't figure out how to bribe, this will happen.

forinti• 1 month ago

He spent a lot of money on political donations. I don't think it was from the goodness of his heart.

JeremyNT• 1 month ago

The problem for poor SBF is that he donated to the President's opponents, so presumably he'll need to pay a higher rate for his pardon.

b0sk• 1 month ago

Remember Sam -- Trevor Milton got a pardon via hiring Pam Bondi's brother as his lawyer.

ortusdux• 1 month ago

Do pardons require a full confession?

margalabargala• 1 month ago

No. Furthermore, they don't even need to name a specific crime, a person can be pardoned for "any crimes committed in this period" etc.

nickff• 1 month ago

No; there have been a number of (controversial) pardons for people who were either not charged or had not been convicted. Gerald Ford set something of a precedent by pardoning Richard Nixon for activities related to the Watergate cover-up, and Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned his whole family.

These applications of the pardon power have been controversial, but never successfully challenged.

wl• 1 month ago

There's this notion from the Supreme Court case Burdick v. United States (1915) that accepting a pardon is an implicit admission of guilt. Therefore, a person can refuse a pardon. There isn't anything in the decision to justify the argument that accepting the pardon is an admission of guilt, it's just stated as a fact. It seems at odds with situations where pardons have been used to correct miscarriages of justice in cases of factual innocence.

Maxatar2• 1 month ago

Just to clarify, a pardon in the ordinary sense can't be refused. If you're imprisoned and the President pardon's you, you can't decide to refuse the pardon and remain in prison. As soon as the pardon is granted you are released, whether you like it or not, whether you "accept" it or not.

The Burdick case had to do with an individual who had not yet been convicted of anything being offered a pardon in exchange for testimony that could have otherwise incriminated him. The Supreme Court ruled that in that specific scenario someone accepting a pardon could be seen as admitting guilt, so the pardon couldn't be forced on Burdick to strip away his fifth amendment right and compel his testimony.

everforward• 1 month ago

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.

tptacek• 1 month ago

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.

kgwxd• 1 month ago

given the current administration, asking on Twitter might get you further!

Doesn't matter how you "apply", as long as the cash is received.

tim333• 1 month ago

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

codeddesign• 1 month ago

As I recall, Biden pardoned all of his family members. If you think corruption is a single party issue, your bias itself is corrupted over basic logic

yalogin• 1 month ago

I was expecting this to be done by now as the administration is not worried about optics, so not sure what’s holding it up.

Maxatar2• 1 month ago

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.

evan_• 1 month ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1qrl9l1qo CZ pardon- for reference

bpodgursky3• 1 month ago

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.

themafia2• 1 month ago

Ross Ulbricht became a cause celebre among libertarians

And was a campaign promise Trump issued in order to secure votes from that base.

AgentME• 1 month ago

This isn't that surprising after it was reported on that he had notes about claiming to "come out as a Republican and against the woke agenda" as a PR plan to defend himself. (https://gizmodo.com/sbf-floated-coming-out-republican-tucker...) I wonder if Trump is selling pardons and whether SBF still has the means for it. It's depressing that the US's state of affairs is such that this might be a workable strategy for him.

LZ_Khan• 1 month ago

L O L

mattas• 1 month ago

I had no idea there was an _application_ you could fill out for a pardon.

christoff12• 1 month ago

I'm surprised it's taken this long.

kachoio• 1 month ago

Help Trump launch another meme coin and he’s out

Animats2• 1 month ago

SBF offering to manage Trump's meme coins might appeal to Trump. They've crashed. [1][2] Trump's stablecoin was just delisted a few hours ago, as part of a strange dispute.[3]

[1] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/official-trump/

[2] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/melania-meme/

[3] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/usd1/

Yizahi• 1 month ago

Well, he knows the price for this service - you donate 2 billion real USD to Mr. Orange private shittoken scam "fund" and you go free. He should scrounge his pockets or ask his cronies to prepare a required fee.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/23/pardon-binance-founder-cz-tr...

Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

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