Senator John Kennedy grills SEC nominee Paul Atkins about SBF pardon

US Senator John Kennedy grilled prospective Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) president Paul Atkins astir a imaginable pardon for Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried during the Senate Banking Committee’s March 27 information hearing.

The Louisiana Republican directed a bid of questions astir the erstwhile FTX CEO toward Atkins and probed the prospective SEC president astir donations Bankman-Fried’s household made to Stanford University.

Senator John Kennedy questions prospective SEC president Paul Atkins. Source: Senate Banking Committee

Kennedy past urged the SEC to instrumentality enactment to forestall immoderate imaginable pardons connected behalf of SBF. Kennedy added:

"There should not beryllium 2 standards of instrumentality and punishment for radical successful America. And each clip you travel to this committee, I americium going to pounce connected you similar a ninja to find retired what the SEC has done due to the fact that I don't deliberation the SEC has done a damn thing."

“I work successful the insubstantial that the Bankman-Frieds were trying to get a pardon. They are crooks, and I expect the SEC to bash thing astir it,” the Senator continued.

Reports emerged successful January that SBF’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, were seeking a pardon for their son from recently-elected US President Donald Trump pursuing his high-profile pardon of Silk Road laminitis Ross Ulbricht.

Paul Atkins answers questions astatine his information hearing. Source: Senate Banking Committee

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Presidential pardon “unlikely” for SBF

SBF is unlikely to unafraid a pardon for respective reasons that differentiate the lawsuit from that of the Silk Road founder, according to White Collar Support Group enforcement manager William Livolsi.

In the lawsuit of Ulbricht, the charges were victimless crimes tied to the cognition of a contraband marketplace arsenic opposed to causing billions successful capitalist losses.

Livolsi added that the condemnation imposed connected Ulbricht of 2 lifetimes down bars positive an further 40 years without the anticipation of parole and the nationalist run committedness made by then-candidate Trump to pardon Ulbricht acceptable the concern apart.

Tucker Carlson interviews SBF from prison. Source: Tucker Carlson

Despite this, SBF has attempted to cozy up to Republicans successful respective interviews with autarkic media outlets, including a February interview with The New York Sun and an interview with Tucker Carlson connected March 2025.

The Carlson interrogation was not sanctioned by situation authorities, starring to SBF being thrown into solitary confinement pursuing the interrogation and moved from a situation installation located successful New York to Oklahoma.

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