The crypto industry is outraged over the decision of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to not pursue a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).
The decision was termed ‘a miscarriage of justice’ by crypto exchange Coinbase and others also came up with the reasoning behind the trial’s cancellation.
According to the lawyer, the case was being dropped in an election year, with SBF having given $10 million to the Biden administration and had meetings with the SEC.
Coinbase’s response
The second trial against the disgraced FTX founder had been scheduled to begin in March and was aimed at addressing many additional criminal counts against him.
These also include charges of campaign financing, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided to not pursue it.
Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer at Coinbase, took to X to share his sentiments about the decision of the DOJ. He called it a mistake.
He went on to say that public airing of charges is always important, especially when campaign finance charges are involved.
He added that the questions about what politicians and others were aware of are crucial and need to be answered.
The Coinbase official said that announcing the decision on a Friday night also fuels public cynics because politics is at play.
More criticism
He was not the only one to criticize the decision, as many others also took to social media to do the same.
Some people called the decision ‘disgusting’, ‘sickening’ and ‘outrageous’ and even went as far as accusing the DOJ of corruption.
They said that FTX had donated millions of dollars to the Democrat campaign and the DOJ had separated charges of campaign finance from his fraud trial.
Now that SBF has been convicted of fraud, they were dropping the trial aimed at campaign finance crimes because it would have likely implicated Democrats.
Some accused the government of corruption and said that things like this should no longer come as a surprise.
The reasoning
John Deaton, a lawyer, said that the timing of the decision was suspicious, as the DOJ had decided to drop the case during election year.
He said that Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, had testified during SBF’s trial that he had given $10 million to the Biden administration.
Moreover, she had revealed that the reason he had given the funds was to ‘buy access’. In addition, SBF also had meetings with Gary Gensler, the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
He had two meetings with the chairman and had also met other SEC staff. The lawyer called the DOJ a joke.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s first trial concluded in 2023 with him being convicted of the fraud and money laundering charges filed against him, amongst others.
He is now awaiting sentencing and is expected to appeal the decision. His bail had already been revoked for tampering with a witness. He could be sentenced to 110 years in prison.