SBF Says Court Narrative Was Misleading in Latest The New York Sun Interview

Sam Bankman-Fried criticized the “politicization” of his October 2023 fraud trial while commending the Republican Party for being “far more reasonable” than Democrats, the disgraced FTX founder revealed to The New York Sun in an interview published Thursday, February 21, 2025.

Sam Bankman-Fried Tells All In New Interview

In the nearly hour-long interview , Bankman-Fried criticized the Department of Justice’s prosecution against him for lacking what he called “a fair and balanced view or approach that was taken.”

Bankman-Fried further criticized Judge Lewis A. Kaplan for “allowing the prosecution to tell the jury that everyone had lost all of their money” while “preventing the defense from addressing the exact same topic.”

“The fact that the story the jury was told was false obviously made that a pretty critical point of the trial,” he alleged.

Kaplan, who was nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York back in 1994, previously handled the 2023 civil trial brought against U.S. President Donald Trump by journalist E. Jean Carroll.

“I know President Trump had a lot of frustrations with Judge Kaplan,” the Alameda Research founder said. “I certainly did as well.”

Bankman-Fried also condemned the alleged “explicitness” of the prosecution’s “politicization” against his FTX co-conspirators amid claims his parents are seeking Trump to pardon him from serving his quarter-century-long sentence.

FTX Founder Says Republican Party Is More Reasonable On Crypto Policy

The former “king of crypto” donated to Democratic causes during his time spearheading the international crypto exchange before its collapse in November 2022.

He was found guilty on all fraud counts brought against him and sentenced to 25 years behind bars in March 2024, coupled with an $11 billion fine.

“I viewed myself at the time as sort of center left,” the MIT grad said during his time at the exchange. “And that’s not how I view myself anymore. It is not how I came to view myself by 2022.”

Bankman-Fried previously testified before Congress on enacting digital asset regulations and crypto policy as a whole, though he has since chastised former U.S. President Joe Biden for his approach to the topic.

“The Biden administration was just incredibly destructive and difficult to work with,” Bankman-Fried continued. “Frankly, the Republican Party was far more reasonable.”

With his parents actively seeking clemency and Bankman-Fried arguing that the jury was fed a distorted narrative, the decision to pardon may ultimately hinge on whether these claims resonate with Trump’s political priorities.

As legal and political observers scrutinize each unfolding detail, the case offers a focused lens on how partisan perspectives can shape outcomes in financial fraud litigation.