Criticism grows over Bankman-Fried's "suspicious" arrest before testifying before the House

The arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency platform FTX, is causing a lot of buzz because of the "suspicious" timing of his arrest.

The investor, who was a major donor to the Democratic Party, was to appear virtually before the House Financial Services Committee to discuss the collapse of the cryptocurrency company. However, just 24 hours earlier he was arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government.

Several legal experts criticized the authorities' decision, but one Republican lawmaker even pointed out how curious it is that the arrest came ahead of Bankman-Fried's testimony.

”Just 24 hours before he was to appear and testify under oath to spill the beans as to what happened in this fraud — he was arrested at the request of the United States Department of Justice. The timing of that arrest is incredibly suspect," expressed Wisconsin Republican Party Representative Bryan Steil.

The member of the House of Representatives expressed that the way everything happened has left many questions unanswered and that it is important to clarify them and hold the criminals involved in the case accountable.

Former federal prosecutor and state prosecutor-elect Michael McAuliffe said that in any case the arrest should have been made after the testimony that was already scheduled, as very valuable information could have been obtained and given under oath.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahman also gave his opinion to Newsweek and claimed that if Bankman-Fried had gone before the House committee he probably would have incriminated himself.

"Testimony would have been helpful for a number of reasons, and prosecutors should have waited to arrest Bankman-Fried," he said.

FTX founder may not go to trial

Judge Jeanine Pirro expressed her concern about the way the entire Bankman-Fried case has been handled.

According to the former New York prosecutor, the feds may intend to file charges against Bankman-Fried's ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison and FTX's former Chief Technology Officer, Zixiao "Gary" Wang, before going after the investor.

"The feds clearly wanted to get these two to plead guilty to very similar charges. They had to meet the conditions of the plea deal. The conditions of the plea deal are that they testify and cooperate with the feds in incriminating Sam Bankman-Fried," he said, stressing that this means the chances of the investor going to trial are "slim to none."

The story behind the scandal

Political analyst Will Cain indicated that it is important to remember that this case is also about politics, as Bankman-Fried not only spent other people's money to live a life of luxury, but also became a major donor to the Democratic party.

"It's Democrat politicians who were getting big campaign donations from Sam Bankman-Fried. To me, this is the story" he said.

Another interesting aspect of the case is that it recently came to light that at least 11 of the legislators on the committee investigating the FTX collapse received donations from Bankman-Fried.

According to federal records, the former chief executive officer of the cryptocurrency company contributed nearly $95,000 in donations to members of the House Financial Services Committee, prior to the 2022 midterm elections, and the majority would have been rightly received by Democrats.