The U.S. Senate agreed on Wednesday that Sam Bankman-Fried should never receive clemency, passing a resolution stating that the FTX founder should “under no circumstances” get a pardon or commutation. It passed by unanimous consent.

The nonbinding resolution was led by Senators Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, who serve as the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee. The pair introduced the measure last month, after Bankman-Fried formally asked Trump for a pardon.

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“He had his day in court,” Lummis said, introducing the resolution last month.

President Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, but said in January he had no plans to rescue Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year sentence and is not eligible for release until around 2044. A jury convicted him in November 2023 on seven counts tied to the collapse of FTX, which prosecutors called one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, with customers losing more than $8 billion. He lost an appeal of that conviction in June and is separately seeking a new trial.

FTX collapsed in November 2022 after it emerged that Bankman-Fried had funneled billions in customer deposits to Alameda Research, his affiliated trading firm, which spent the money on trades, venture bets, political donations, and real estate. The exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, once customers rushed to withdraw funds that were no longer there.

AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.

Senate Passes Bipartisan Resolution Opposing Clemency for FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried

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