Sam Bankman-Fried applies for a pardon from Trump

jihadjihad

> 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...

Animats

Does the White House take Visa for pardons?

Tangurena2

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

beastman82

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

b0sk

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

ortusdux

Do pardons require a full confession?

tptacek

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.

yalogin

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.

AgentME

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.

mattas

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

christoff12

I'm surprised it's taken this long.

kachoio

Help Trump launch another meme coin and he’s out

Yizahi

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...