Dem's Mega-Donor Empire Continues to Crumble: Dark Money Group Following Crypto King's Demise, Report
Following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX amid allegations that co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried loaned billion of clients’ funds to a trading house he founded, his mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, has stepped down from her role at the Democrat-aligned dark money group Mind the Gap, according to a report by investigative journalist Theodore Schleifer published by Puck News Tuesday.
Both Fried, who founded Mind the Gap and served as the chair of board of directors, and Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabe Bankman-Fried, who served in an undisclosed role, have resigned from the organization, with Fried’s resignation email containing a defense of her son, according to Schleifer.
Sam Bankman-Fried, who was the second-largest individual donor to Democrats in 2022 behind George Soros according to OpenSecrets, is currently the target of a lawsuit alleging his now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX was a “Ponzi scheme,” and is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and New York-based federal prosecutors.
Mind the Gap described itself as a group of “pro bono donor advisors,” and does not make any political donations itself, according to a fall 2019 memo reported on by Schleifer on Vox in January 2020. In 2018, the group directed $20 million in donations to Democratic races, and set a goal of directing $140 million in donations in 2020, according to the memo.
Since the group does not directly make any donations itself, and its apparent website lacks any information, it is unknown at this time if it reached that goal.
Sam Bankman-Fried said he had “consulted” for the group in the past, according to Schleifer’s Puck News article.
The group hides its efforts to keep Republicans from noticing its involvement in a race, often encouraging donors to keep quiet and focus spending in the fall election season to deny Republicans the opportunity to match or outspend them, according to a 2020 Vox article, also by Schleifer.
In some cases, even candidates who receive the donations are not aware of the role Mind the Gap played in securing them.
Mind the Gap could not be reached for comment. Fried did not respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
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A version of this article appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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