Today, Congresswoman Carolyn Bourdeaux called out Protect Our Future founder, Sam Bankman-Fried and his company, FTX—a cryptocurrency exchange with a record of making it easy for criminals to launder money and commit fraud and links to the Trump Administration—for gearing up to dump millions of dollars into the Georgia’s 7th Congressional race.

Sam Bankman-Fried recently announced his super PAC, Protect Our Future, would spend $10 million dollars during the 2022 campaign cycle. Rep. Bourdeaux is calling on her opponents to join her in committing to a clean campaign and rejecting outside dark money.

“FTX is a foreign cryptocurrency company with a record of business dealings that make it easy for criminals to commit fraud and money laundering, and now their founder, Sam Bankman-Fried and his Trump Administration associates are planning to dump millions of dollars in dark money into the election for the 7th district on behalf of Lucy McBath,” said Congresswoman Carolyn Bourdeaux.

“I call on Lucy to immediately disavow this funding. It is critical that this race reflect the needs of our diverse community and put good policy first. The people of Georgia’s 7th deserve a representative who will prioritize them over questionably sourced dark money. I am proud to run a clean campaign and call on my opponents to follow suit.”

Protect Our Future founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s company, FTX, has a history of shady business practices and a record of making it easy for criminals to launder money and commit fraud.

• In July 2021, an investigation found that Americans were using FTX to circumvent Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rules including investor-protection requirements and safeguards against money laundering and market manipulation. At the time, FTX allowed users to sign up for the services with just their names, emails and county of residence with no requirement to provide documents to confirm their identity.
• In January 2021, Binance—one of FTX’s early investors—was caught actively planning ways to undermine anti-money laundering and law enforcement activity.
• In October 2021, FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried actively promoted Tethers, a type of cryptocurrency. In February 2021, Tethers and Bitfinex, a crypto exchange, were fined $18.5 million by the Attorney General of New York for covering up massive financial losses and deceiving clients. According to a press release from the Attorney General James’ office “starting no later than mid-2017, Tether had no access to banking, anywhere in the world, and so for periods of time held no reserves to back tethers in circulation at the rate of one dollar for every tether, contrary to its representations.”
• Finally, in January 2022 FTX Digital Markets CEO Ryan Salame (the head of FTX's Bahamian subsidiary) partnered with former Trump spokesperson Anthony Scarramucci to fund GMI PAC which plans to spend $20 million supporting crypto-friendly candidates in the midterms.

Original source can be found here.