Zero Hedge:
“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone,” Bankman-Fried (SBF) said.
He claims he was shocked by what happened this month.
“I have limited access to data,” Bankman-Fried said about his attempt to reconstruct what happened over the past month.
Which makes us wonder – if he didn’t have the data, who did?
When pressed by Sorkin, Bankman-Fried said “I didn’t knowingly commingle funds”.
Which we note is not a denial, and as NYT notes, on the commingling of funds, there appears to be ample evidence suggests that Alameda and FTX shared an account at their U.S. banking partner Silvergate. Not sure how that could square with SBF’s claim that that didn’t occur, or wasn’t aware it was occurring.
Over and over again, SBF calls it an “accounting mistake” claiming that there was a difference between FTX’s audited financials vs FTX’s internal dashboards showing Alameda’s positions.
SBF tries to distance himself from the trading firm, claiming he did not have the bandwidth to run two companies (FTX and Alameda).
“I wasn’t running Alameda,” he says.
“I was nervous because of the conflict of interest of being too involved.”
Clearly SBF is attempting to throw Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda under the bus as responsible for the downfall.
Asked when he knew there was a problem, he responded “Nov 6th”, which just happens to be the day that Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, publicly tweeted he’d be liquidating Binance’s holdings of FTT.
When they looked at the data, they realized “there was a potential, serious problem there,” he says. Alameda’s position was huge on FTX, and it had just taken a huge hit.
When asked by Sorkin if his lawyers support him speaking publicly about this, SBF says “no they are very much not.”
“I have a duty to talk and to explain what happened.”
“I’m looking to be helpful anywhere I can with any of the global entities,” he says.
SBF framed the whole debacle as a risk management problem that got out of hand in what he calls a “run on the bank,” and that he was unaware of any actions taken by Alameda.
The former White Knight notably squirmed uncomfortably when asked if he is concerned about criminal liability, stuttering the comment that “there’s a time and a place for me to think about myself and my own future. I don’t think this is it.”
“I don’t personally think that I have” criminal liability.
Asked whether FTX’s charitable endeavors were part of a PR campaign. Some were real, he said.
But “there are things I felt like we needed to do for the business.”
With regard to his massive donations to Democrats and cozy relationships with regulators, he said he participated in these types of things, and he wishes that this wasn’t how the world worked, blasting the ‘greenwashing’ that many firms have to do.
“I spent probably thousands of hours in DC trying to get to the point where I could actually have meetings with some of the regulators,” Bankman-Fried said. He said it wasn’t an issue of donations or money — it was a matter of repeatedly asking for meetings and submitting documents.
Sorkin asks SBF about the Adderal use and group sleepovers. SBF responds, “We messed up big.”
“Look, I screwed up,” adding that we “completely failed” on risk management, and conflict of interest risk.
Read More HERE
Opinion: Having spent a career in financial services, much of it supervising financial advisors, the defense “I didn’t knowingly commingle funds”, is preposterous. When caught in such actions a fiduciary will be held responsible, lose licenses to do business in the industry, suffer fines and may be put in prison. Commingling funds is serious business.
BUT …
When a fiduciary has spread untold millions among Democrat leaders, not only will the fiduciary not be prosecuted, they may become highly revered despite customers suffering catastrophic financial loses.
AND …
Leading Democrats like Maxine Waters, Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, attempted to share the blame with Republicans …
… to which there is absolutely no evidence ….
So …
We can expect the biggest financial collapse in history to be conveniently …
for now.
“For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.” Luke 8:17
