Ruben Gallego Leads Unanimous Senate Vote Against Pardoning FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried

A bipartisan Senate resolution passed unanimously this week declaring that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should never receive a presidential pardon, and Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) led the charge.

Gallego co-led the resolution alongside Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), as the top Democrat and top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee's digital assets subcommittee.

The measure passed by unanimous consent, meaning no senator raised an objection.

"Last night the Senate unanimously passed my resolution with Senator Lummis saying Sam Bankman-Fried should never get a pardon," Gallego emphasized. "He stole more than $8 billion from hardworking Americans and a jury convicted him unanimously. He's a criminal who deserves to stay locked up."

Largest Cryptocurrency Platform

Bankman-Fried founded FTX, once one of the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, before its dramatic collapse in 2022.

Prosecutors alleged he secretly used billions of dollars in customer deposits to fund risky investments and cover mounting losses at his separate trading firm, leaving more than $8 billion in customer funds unaccounted for when FTX fell apart.

Therefore, a jury convicted him on seven counts of fraud and related charges in November 2023, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, a sentence a federal appeals court upheld last month.

Since his conviction, Bankman-Fried has been pursuing clemency, prompting Gallego and Lummis to introduce the resolution in June.

The push gained particular urgency given that President Donald Trump has granted pardons to several other figures with ties to the cryptocurrency world, though Trump has stated he has no current plans to extend the same to Bankman-Fried.

While the resolution is nonbinding and cannot legally restrict the president's constitutional pardon authority, supporters say the unanimous Senate vote carries significant symbolic weight, sending a clear message about where Congress stands.

With his appeal rejected, the White House signaling no interest in a pardon, and now the full Senate on record against clemency, Bankman-Fried's options for early release have narrowed considerably. His current projected release date falls somewhere around 2044.