Thanks for the feedback. I tried to carefully distinguish between coordination/straw donors, because I agree that’s the crux of the matter, legally-speaking. GAP leadership definitely coordinated donors but there’s nothing illegal about that. While we don’t have enough evidence to know for sure, it seems to me that the weight of the evidence points moderately in the direction that they participated in a straw donor scheme.
We’ll probably have more information in ~6 months. E.g. if the prosecution/journalists reveal the identities of the individuals who were in the auto-deleting Signal group and GAP leadership is in it, that would probably be strong evidence IMO.
I guess we have different priors at this point in the FTX scandal about the value of getting to the bottom of who knew what when vs. reputational damage to the community by contributing to a pile-on. My impression is that the public (to the extent that people are aware of it) has pretty much already solidified against FTX/GAP but there’s still significant value for the EA community in understanding the mistakes that were made.
I interpreted the signal group as being where the GAP people approved donations with the billionaires then told the billionaires where to send their money. (Like prodding one of the billionaires to donate to “woke shit for transactional purposes” when they didn’t want to.) Why would it also involve coordinating reimbursement? I’m not saying it didn’t, it just seems really stupid and unnecessary if it did. Also, there is no evidence for it.
Pointing out that we will have more evidence in 6 months seems to me to lean in the direction of not now making extremely serious accusations without it.
I agree that coordinating reimbursement via a Signal channel would be very dumb but that’s exactly what the indictment says they did. I’d encourage you to read pages 15-18. I’ve bolded some of the relevant selections below for you. The remaining question mark is whether GAP leadership was in the Signal group.
From at least in or around March 2022, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, and his co-conspirators began coordinating political contributions paid for using FTX and Alameda funds through an encrypted, auto-deleting Signal chat called “Donation Processing.” From time to time, BANKMAN-FRIED and his co-conspirators substituted other individuals in BANKMAN-FRIED’s place for contributions originally intended to be made in BANKMAN-FRIED’s name. For instance, shortly before the midterm elections, an FTX employee was directed to “wire $107k from [BANKMAN-FRIED] personal to New York State Democratic Committee,” but then was asked by BANKMAN-FRIED to “update this to a 107k contribution from [CC-1].”
Notwithstanding his awareness of the campaign finance laws, in order to conceal the true source of the funds, SAMUEL 16 Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK Document 80 Filed 02/23/23 Page 16 of 39 BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, agreed with others that funds for contributions would be transferred from Alameda’s bank accounts, which also contained FTX customer funds, to bank accounts in the name of the donors, and then quickly transferred from those individuals’ bank accounts to political campaigns.
In total, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, and his coconspirators made over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful because they were made in the name of a straw donor or paid for with corporate funds. In dozens of instances, BANKMAN-FRIED’s use of straw donors allowed him to evade contribution limits on individual donations to candidates to whom he had already donated.
Instead, an internal Alameda spreadsheet noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or P ACs.
To be clear, I was saying that it would be dumb to have a signal group with GAP people where you discussed reimbursement for the same reason its dumb to plan a robbery on a bus. My issue was not signal, it was adding a bunch of random witnesses for no reason. In the same way, if I heard that a group of people planned a robbery, I would make the vague assumption they did not do so on a bus. Maybe they did, but what a stupid and pointless risk that was.
Your public accusation of EAs having committed a serious felony seems to rest on the assumption that SBF et al planned their crimes while sharing a bus with the GAP folks. Which, yeah, maybe, but I doubt it. Because why? In the absence of evidence it seems like a leap. In the presence of potential future evidence, it seems like a pointlessly premature accusation. In the presence of your alleged concern about EA’s reputation, it seems like you are, without evidence, defaming EA loudly on a crowded bus.
Thanks for the feedback. I tried to carefully distinguish between coordination/straw donors, because I agree that’s the crux of the matter, legally-speaking. GAP leadership definitely coordinated donors but there’s nothing illegal about that. While we don’t have enough evidence to know for sure, it seems to me that the weight of the evidence points moderately in the direction that they participated in a straw donor scheme.
We’ll probably have more information in ~6 months. E.g. if the prosecution/journalists reveal the identities of the individuals who were in the auto-deleting Signal group and GAP leadership is in it, that would probably be strong evidence IMO.
I guess we have different priors at this point in the FTX scandal about the value of getting to the bottom of who knew what when vs. reputational damage to the community by contributing to a pile-on. My impression is that the public (to the extent that people are aware of it) has pretty much already solidified against FTX/GAP but there’s still significant value for the EA community in understanding the mistakes that were made.
I interpreted the signal group as being where the GAP people approved donations with the billionaires then told the billionaires where to send their money. (Like prodding one of the billionaires to donate to “woke shit for transactional purposes” when they didn’t want to.) Why would it also involve coordinating reimbursement? I’m not saying it didn’t, it just seems really stupid and unnecessary if it did. Also, there is no evidence for it.
Pointing out that we will have more evidence in 6 months seems to me to lean in the direction of not now making extremely serious accusations without it.
I agree that coordinating reimbursement via a Signal channel would be very dumb but that’s exactly what the indictment says they did. I’d encourage you to read pages 15-18. I’ve bolded some of the relevant selections below for you. The remaining question mark is whether GAP leadership was in the Signal group.
**
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940/gov.uscourts.nysd.590940.80.0.pdf
From at least in or around March 2022, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, and his co-conspirators began coordinating political contributions paid for using FTX and Alameda funds through an encrypted, auto-deleting Signal chat called “Donation Processing.” From time to time, BANKMAN-FRIED and his co-conspirators substituted other individuals in BANKMAN-FRIED’s place for contributions originally intended to be made in BANKMAN-FRIED’s name. For instance, shortly before the midterm elections, an FTX employee was directed to “wire $107k from [BANKMAN-FRIED] personal to New York State Democratic Committee,” but then was asked by BANKMAN-FRIED to “update this to a 107k contribution from [CC-1].”
Notwithstanding his awareness of the campaign finance laws, in order to conceal the true source of the funds, SAMUEL 16 Case 1:22-cr-00673-LAK Document 80 Filed 02/23/23 Page 16 of 39 BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, agreed with others that funds for contributions would be transferred from Alameda’s bank accounts, which also contained FTX customer funds, to bank accounts in the name of the donors, and then quickly transferred from those individuals’ bank accounts to political campaigns.
In total, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a “SBF,” the defendant, and his coconspirators made over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful because they were made in the name of a straw donor or paid for with corporate funds. In dozens of instances, BANKMAN-FRIED’s use of straw donors allowed him to evade contribution limits on individual donations to candidates to whom he had already donated.
Instead, an internal Alameda spreadsheet noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or P ACs.
To be clear, I was saying that it would be dumb to have a signal group with GAP people where you discussed reimbursement for the same reason its dumb to plan a robbery on a bus. My issue was not signal, it was adding a bunch of random witnesses for no reason. In the same way, if I heard that a group of people planned a robbery, I would make the vague assumption they did not do so on a bus. Maybe they did, but what a stupid and pointless risk that was.
Your public accusation of EAs having committed a serious felony seems to rest on the assumption that SBF et al planned their crimes while sharing a bus with the GAP folks. Which, yeah, maybe, but I doubt it. Because why? In the absence of evidence it seems like a leap. In the presence of potential future evidence, it seems like a pointlessly premature accusation. In the presence of your alleged concern about EA’s reputation, it seems like you are, without evidence, defaming EA loudly on a crowded bus.