C'mon, Man, that would mean the Justice Department was working to protect the Democrats
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Two lawmakers question the timing of Sam, The Fried Bank Man’s arrest, one day before he was scheduled to testify to Congress
A bipartisan duo of lawmakers Monday night questioned the wisdom of arresting disgraced crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried the day before he was set to testify before Congress about the collapse of his FTX exchange.
The 30-year-old FTX founder was nabbed by authorities in the Bahamas Monday night after criminal charges were filed against him by US prosecutors.
But Bankman-Fried’s sudden arrest means the shaggy-haired former billionaire will be exempt from testifying at Tuesday’s House Financial Services Committee.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) was among those to criticize the timing of his detainment, tweeting that House Republicans had been “ready to grill him six ways to Sunday” on the failure of one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
“Tomorrow, Sam Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee … Now breaking tonight, SBF was just arrested!” Zeldin wrote.
To be fair, the other congressman protesting Brinkman’s arrest was Maxine Waters (D-Calif) chairwoman of the Financial Service Committee, who said that she was “disappointed” that the arrest happened prior to the hearing she had scheduled, but she’s stupid crazy, so who knows what’s rattling around in her brain case? I’m guessing she’s just mad that she’s lost her opportunity to star in a media circus.
When this story broke yesterday, my first thought was, why on earth would a prosecutor pass up the chance to let a criminal testify under oath, without a lawyer? Woudn’t you wait, and see what incriminating admissions and excuses he made? Others, including a real prosecutor, had the same reaction:
Abe Hamadeh, a former prosecutor and GOP nominee for Arizona attorney general, said the decision to arrest Bankman-Fried on the eve of his testimony didn’t make sense tactically.
“As a former prosecutor, this doesn’t make much sense. You want him to talk…,” Hamadeh tweeted.
Others appeared to suggest Bankman-Fried had allegedly been spared because of his history of donating millions of dollars to Democratic political campaigns and mostly left-leaning political causes.
“We ALL know the real reason why mega-Democrat donor Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested today…so he wouldn’t have to testify in front of Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee tomorrow,” Javon A. Price, of the America First Policy Institute, tweeted.
There’s been no claim by the DOJ that Friedman was preparing to flee the Bahamas; certainly not by today, so the decision to arrest him late yesterday afternoon rather than later today, after he’d testified is … curious.
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