Leaders of the US House Committee on Financial Services have separately requested that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried appear at an investigative hearing scheduled for December 13.
In December 2 posts on Twitter, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, the Democrat Maxine Waters, and the highest-ranking member, the Republican Patrick McHenry, they requested for Bankman-Friend to speak at a hearing to investigate the events surrounding the FTX collapse. It is unclear whether US lawmakers intended for the former FTX CEO to appear in person or remotely from the Bahamas.
“[Sam Bankman-Fried]We appreciate you being candid in your conversations about what happened at FTX,” said Waters. “His willingness to speak to the public will help the company’s customers, investors and others.”
“Like you said, [Sam Bankman-Fried]has a duty to ‘try to do the right thing’ and to ‘help customers'”, McHenry said. “If this is a true statement, testify before the House Financial Services Committee on 12/13.”
.@SBF_FTXwe appreciate that you’ve been candid in your discussions about what happened at #FTX. Your willingness to talk to the public will help the company’s customers, investors, and others. To that end, we would welcome your participation in our hearing on the 13th.
—Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) December 2, 2022
The House committee said in November that it expected to hear from the companies and individuals involved in the FTX crash, including Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research and Binance. The major cryptocurrency exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11, and subsequent filings revealed the company may be held accountable by more than a million creditors.
US lawmakers on the Senate Agriculture Committee held a similar hearing on December 1, questioning Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam about the FTX crash and the impact on markets. traditional financiers. Behnam pointed to “loopholes in the federal regulatory framework” that could lead to investors losing funds in the collapse of another major exchange without additional authority for the financial regulator.
Some cryptocurrency enthusiasts on Twitter pointed out that Bankman-Friend had donated millions of dollars to political candidates in the 2022 US midterm elections. According to data reported by Opensecrets.org, these contributions included $5,000 donations to a political action committee supporting Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne and New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, both members of the House Financial Services Committee. .
Rep. Waters, we appreciate that you’re holding a hearing on the 13th, and we look forward to substantive fact finding about what happened at FTX. I am certain that fact finding will show that @SBF_FTX has not, in fact, been candid in his discussions. He committed fraud, full stop.
—Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) December 2, 2022
Since the FTX bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried has stepped up his appearances in the media, repeatedly apologizing for the mistakes that led to the exchange’s collapse. A story on November 16 suggested that authorities were considering extraditing the former CEO to the United States for questioning, but at the time of publication, Bankman-Friend was still in the Bahamas.
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