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Federal prosecutors made the case that Sam Bankman-Fried, the former cryptocurrency guru, orchestrated one of the largest frauds in financial history. A jury ultimately agreed and convicted him last fall on multiple criminal counts.
Yesterday, as NBC News reported, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in defrauding users of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
In a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan called the defense argument misleading, logically flawed and speculative. He said Bankman-Fried had obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses in mounting his defense — something Kaplan said he weighed in his sentencing decision.
At face value, this might not look like an especially political story, but just below the surface, there is an angle to this that stands out.
Shortly after the 2022 midterm elections, for example, before Tucker Carlson and Fox News parted ways, the far-right host told viewers that “Biden’s Justice Department seems not very interested in a man called Sam Bankman-Fried. Why is that? Well, maybe because Bankman-Fried was the Democratic Party’s second-biggest donor this cycle.”
Carlson went on to suggest that the former cryptocurrency guru would get away with his crimes “because he’s a political ally” to Democrats.
A few days later, conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk agreed that there would be “no investigation” into Bankman-Fried because he was “a major Dem donor.”
Two weeks later, Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio appeared on Fox Business Network and said the Bankman-Fried case reflects a “two-tiered” justice system.
All of this talk was wrong. The Justice Department didn’t show Bankman-Fried any preferential treatment based on his history of campaign contributions. On the contrary, they built a case, prosecuted him, and sought a multi-decade prison sentence. His partisan preferences were utterly irrelevant.
But much of the GOP and its allies are convinced — or at least pretend to be — that federal law enforcement has been corrupted by rascally Democrats.
Reality tells a very different story.
As things currently stand, the “Biden’s Justice Department,” under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland, has:
- launched a criminal case against President Joe Biden’s son;
- filed multiple felony indictments against an incumbent Democratic senator during his re-election bid;
- launched a criminal investigation into an incumbent Democratic representative during her re-election bid;
- successfully prosecuted one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors from the most recent election cycle;
- successfully prosecuted the guy who stole and leaked Donald Trump’s tax returns.
And yet, despite these developments, one of the animating concepts in contemporary Republican politics is that rascally Democrats have “weaponized” federal law enforcement to punish GOP figures and shield Democrats from accountability. The Justice Department and the FBI, leading Republican voices insist, are little more than political tools for the Biden White House and its fiendish allies.
As we’ve discussed, Republicans don’t just want their conspiracy theory to be true; they need it to be true. This simple, baseless idea is the foundation for the party’s Trump defense, fundraising, stump speeches, cable news segments, and even legislative campaigns on Capitol Hill.
In 2024, assertions about a “two-tiered” justice system are foundational to GOP politics. They’re also routinely discredited by real-world events.
Indeed, if Biden and his team were trying to weaponize federal law enforcement to benefit Democrats, they’ve proved themselves to be incredibly bad at it.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.