Vox: Crypto Fraudster Bankrolled Michigan Pro-Abortion Campaign
Sam Bankman-Fried, infamous for his role in the collapse of FTX that caused huge losses for cryptocurrency investors, already faced numerous fraud and conspiracy charges for stealing from customers. Now federal prosecutors in New York have indicted Bankman-Fried for making unlawful political donations. The alleged scheme involved “siphon[ing] off FTX’s customer funds and deploy[ing] them for political causes” using shell donors.
Vox reporter Andrew Prokop identifies one of those shell donors as Nishad Singh, a former FTX executive who plans to plead guilty to fraud. Per Vox:
In 2022, Singh’s donations included $4 million to Reproductive Freedom for All, a group supporting an abortion rights ballot initiative in Michigan; $2.25 million to Women Vote!, the independent expenditure arm of Emily’s List, a group supporting pro-abortion-rights women candidates; and $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, money used to support Becca Balint’s winning Democratic primary bid for Vermont’s congressional seat.
Michigan’s disastrous pro-abortion ballot initiative eliminated informed consent, parental consent for minors, the state ban on barbaric partial-birth abortions, and the requirement that only doctors perform abortions. That $4 million contribution, made with stolen funds and in violation of federal election laws, constituted 8.8% of the campaign’s budget.
Would the ballot initiative have passed in the absence of this fraud? We will never know, but Sam Bankman-Fried and Nishad Singh may be personally responsible for the deaths of countless unborn children — a far worse stain on their consciences than their financial misconduct.
Vox notes that Bankman-Fried tried to play both sides of the aisle with a “conservative” straw donor, Ryan Salame, but he did not make countervailing donations to pro-life causes. Instead Salame funded Republican committees, fiscally conservative PACs, and GOP candidates including Salame’s girlfriend (who lost her primary). This follows a troubling national pattern in which high-income oligarchs tend to support abortion while low- and middle-income working Americans tend to oppose it, making it easy for the abortion industry to outspend us.
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