Conservative activist Laura Loomer ignited social media Wednesday with a viral post claiming that there’s a “massive and well-funded” effort to persuade President Donald Trump to pardon Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX.
The allegation spread rapidly across X, riling up partisans who saw back-room corruption or another conspiracy in search of evidence.
“There is a massive and well funded lobby effort to get this criminal pardoned,” Loomer wrote on X. “He’s going to pretend like he was a victim of Joe Biden and the Democrats after he funded all of the left’s campaigns. Don’t fall for it.”
The tweet, needless to say, generated a fair amount of commentary and retweets. But is it true? While there are faint signs of a real clemency push, so far there’s little to suggest the organized campaign Loomer describes.
Smoke in the air
In January, Bloomberg reported that Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, had “explored ways” to seek a pardon for their son from Trump’s orbit. People familiar with the effort told WSJ it was serious enough to merit strategy memos and outside-counsel outreach, though no direct contact with the campaign has been confirmed.
Since being sentenced to 25 years in prison and $11 billion in forfeitures, Bankman-Fried has tried to recast himself amid his pending appeal.
In a March jailhouse interview with Tucker Carlson, the one-time crypto titan distanced himself from Democratic politics and hinted at sympathy for Republican critics of federal prosecutors.
In July, a sharp rise in the price of FTX’s defunct exchange token FTT was traced to a false social-media rumor that Trump had already signed a pardon for the former FTX boss. The Justice Department’s clemency log showed nothing of the sort, but the episode demonstrated how quickly political speculation can move digital-asset markets.
What’s missing
No lobbying disclosures:A quick review of the Lobbying Disclosure Act database found no firms registered to lobby for a “Bankman-Fried pardon” or related clemency effort. Experts note, however, that pardon lobbying often falls into a disclosure gray zone; consultants can label their work “government relations” and avoid registration.
No official action: The Justice Department’s 2025 clemency list does not include Bankman-Fried.No filing, docket, or White House statement indicates that a petition has advanced beyond exploratory conversations.
Low odds, high chatter: Polymarket bettors are betting against it, assigning only a 3% probability that he’ll get out of custody in 2025.
Still, anything is possible. After all, President Trump pardoned Arthur Hayes and his BitMEX co-founders in March, and there’s recent speculation that Trump is considering a pardon of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
But the evidence of a “massive, well-funded” lobbying machine is thin at this point—more smoke than fire.