US Senate Unanimously Passes Resolution Opposing Pardon for FTX Founder

Source: Global Market Report

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Wednesday local time, stating clearly that the founder of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, should not be pardoned.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud charges related to the collapse of FTX. In early June, he officially applied for a pardon from the Trump administration.

The unanimous passage of the resolution in the Senate serves as a clear condemnation of the disgraced former crypto industry executive. The resolution was jointly introduced by two bipartisan senators involved in cryptocurrency regulatory legislation, Senator Ruben Gallego (Democrat, Arizona) and Senator Cynthia Lummis (Republican, Wyoming).

In a statement, Gallego said, “Sam Bankman-Fried is a convicted fraudster found guilty by a unanimous jury, and there should be no controversy about not letting someone like this off the hook.”

He added: “The Senate’s passage of the resolution I introduced proves this point. Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars from countless ordinary Americans—he is a criminal and deserves to remain in prison.”

Before his exchange went bankrupt at the end of 2022, this FTX founder was regarded as one of the central figures in the crypto industry. Afterwards, he was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy—he illegally misappropriated customer funds to maintain his lavish lifestyle.

Last year, there were reports that Bankman-Fried had been lobbying U.S. President Trump in hopes of obtaining a pardon.