SBF attacks prosecutors and the Biden administration, claiming political bias and “lawfare” influenced his conviction

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the imprisoned former CEO of FTX, has launched a fresh attack on what he calls “Biden’s lawfare machine,” claiming prosecutors prevented him from presenting evidence that would have cleared him of fraud charges.

In a series of posts on X published via a proxy, SBF aligned himself with Donald Trump and other defendants he says were victims of politically motivated prosecutions. The posts came in response to comments from Ryan Salame, former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, who is also serving time in prison.

Salame had reacted to news that law firm Fenwick & West agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging it helped facilitate FTX’s fraud. He claimed the firm had explicitly advised that Alameda Research did not need US money transmitting licenses for non-US work, the very issue for which he is imprisoned.

SBF says FTX was solvent

SBF, who is serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023, has repeatedly insisted FTX was solvent when it collapsed. “The money was always there, and FTX was always solvent,” he wrote in the thread.

However, Ryne Miller, FTX’s former general counsel, has refuted those claims. In October 2025, Miller stated that assets available when FTX filed for bankruptcy were nowhere near adequate and that the company’s founders were “fabricating asset lists” while desperately seeking new investors.

In his posts, SBF stated that prosecutor Danielle Sassoon wrote a 70-page document that had all the evidence but was excluded from trial because, according to him, the prosecutors didn’t want the jury to see it. 

He claimed they prohibited him from pointing out FTX was solvent.

He claimed Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over both his case and several Trump-related cases, “rubber-stamped everything Biden’s DOJ wanted” and prevented the jury from seeing the truth.

Allegations against prosecutors

In his posts, SBF accused the Biden administration of targeting him for multiple reasons. He wrote that the administration hated crypto, and he happened to be one of the faces of crypto in the US. 

SBF stated that his switch from being a Democratic Party donor to a Republican donor was another reason why he was hated. 

SBF also mentioned that his opposition to Gary Gensler, the former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, was another reason for the hate he faced from the Biden administration. He wrote that he visited DC dozens of times to try to get power moved away from Gensler.

SBF also alleged that Salame faced bogus charges after refusing to testify against him. According to the posts, prosecutors threatened Salame’s pregnant fiancée, Michelle Bond, to force a guilty plea. Bond was subsequently indicted on campaign finance charges in August 2024. Salame received a 90-month sentence, more than three times the combined sentences of cooperating witnesses.

Sassoon, the prosecutor whom SBF claims was fired by Trump, resigned from the Justice Department in February 2025 rather than comply with orders to dismiss corruption charges against New York mayor Eric Adams.

In November 2025, she testified before a federal judge, denying allegations that she made Salame take the plea deal by promising not to prosecute his fiancée.

The timing of these posts coincides with SBF’s ongoing appeal, which hinges partly on his solvency argument. During trial, Kaplan ruled that whether assets could eventually be recovered was immaterial to fraud charges.

Why is SBF aligning with President Trump?

Once the second-largest individual donor to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, contributing $5.2 million, SBF now praises the Trump administration. 

Some X users have called out SBF’s posts, stating that it is a play at getting a pardon. While there is no indication that the president plans to grant one, it won’t be the first time that the president has pardoned a convicted crypto founder serving their sentence.

There was a slight increase in the odds of SBF getting a presidential pardon from Trump in the prediction markets around his appeal hearing that occurred in November 2025.

Critics say SBF’s latest post is a revisionist attempt to change the narrative and the public’s perception of what caused FTX’s crash.

Sharpen your strategy with mentorship + daily ideas - 30 days free access to our trading program