How About The Great Kitara?
Yesterday, Ally Mutnick and Nick Wu noted that “Crypto-funded super PACs flooded the midterms with millions of dollars in campaign spending. Now some of their preferred candidates could play a crucial role in setting policy that will determine the future of the industry.” And of course, that was exactly what Sam Bankman-Fried was engineering. Did anyone ever believe he was putting ten of millions of dollars into corruptible candidates because they were somehow in favor of pandemic relief? That was a joke from the moment and and his brother, a former staffer— thanks to mommy’s questionable contributions— for shady House Financial Services Committee member Sean Casten, rolled it out.
To begin with, the House Financial Services Committee is one of the most corrupt places on Capitol Hill, home to Congress’ most aggressive bribe-takers from both parties, characters like Patrick McHenry (R-NC, the new chairman), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Roger Williams (R-TX), Joyce Beatty (D-Payday Lenders), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Ted Budd (R-NC), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and Pete Sessions (R-TX). These members are especially adept bribe-taking machines. And now new corrupt members are being added by Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries. Mutnick and Wu wrote that “Deliberations over membership on the House Financial Services Committee have spurred some private discussions over the influence of pro-crypto forces that invested so much money toward cultivating allies in Congress. That has both parties grappling with a 21st-century update to an age-old question: whether candidates who benefitted from significant sums of money from cryptocurrency groups can serve impartially on a panel that is poised to set the first substantive regulations on the industry.” That’s a question????
Summer Lee (D-PA) knows it’s a joke “I think that it’s a conflict of interest. And I think that the influence of money, irrespective of where it comes from, is always going to be something that we need to worry about.”
One freshman, Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN) who received more than $1 million from crypto-backed groups, already got a spot on the House Financial Services Committee. Meanwhile, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Democratic freshman who received significant campaign help from crypto interests, has launched a behind-the-scenes effort to get her House leadership to place her on it as well.
Crypto groups boosted dozens of candidates from both parties during the 2022 primary season and many of them won in November, arriving in the halls of Congress just as the industry is at a crucial precipice. Everyone from President Joe Biden [whose second biggest campaign contributor was Sam Bankman-Fried] to House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC)— a real criminal— has pledged to regulate cryptocurrency, and lawmakers are poised to craft policies that will govern the crypto industry going forward, including settling foundational questions like which federal regulators will get the power to oversee crypto and whether it is classified as a security or a commodity.
“I would hope that in choosing members of the Financial Services Committee… House leadership would not select people who had received million-dollar independent expenditures on their behalf by anyone in the crypto industry,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a longtime Financial Services member, though he noted there are some exceptions. “There are plenty of other committees to serve on. Once you start talking a million bucks of IEs, you’re talking real money.”
And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said there could “potentially” be a conflict of interest for members who’d received crypto-backed donations, especially as the federal investigation into Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, uncovered more details. (Ocasio-Cortez noted that many lawmakers had received Bankman-Fried’s backing during the 2022 elections were unaware of his alleged malfeasance at the time.)
They may have been unaware at the time that Bankman-Fried was stealing billions from FTX investors, but they were certainly aware that they were taking his money in return for serving his interests. One corrupt Democratic freshman, Maxwell Frost (FL) won his primary, in part, because of a million dollar IE from Bankman-Fried… and he immediately started a crypto advisory panel, filled with SBF cronies like Ritchie Torres.
Mutnick and Wu noted that “As is often the case, Democrats appear to be engaged in more hand-wringing over potential corporate conflicts of interest than Republicans”— when they’re not excusing their own corruption by screaming identity politics bullshit.
Crockett, a Dallas-area Democrat who replaced longtime Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, has generated some unease by lobbying for a spot on the Financial Services Committee just months after winning a primary with about $2.77 million in backing from crypto-linked groups.
A former state representative, Crockett ran in a crowded 2022 primary where two crypto-aligned groups— Protect Our Future, which was primarily funded by Bankman-Fried, and Web3 Forward, which received funding from Bankman-Fried and other crypto magnates— boosted her far beyond other Democrats in a March primary and a May runoff victory, which was tantamount to winning the general election in a deep-blue open seat.
A letter circulated among Democrats representing Arizona, New Mexico and Texas recommended Crockett in her bid to join the Financial Services committee. The letter cited Dallas’ Federal Reserve Bank and called it “one of the fastest growing housing and financial services sectors.”
Crockett, in a statement sent to Politico after this story was first published, confirmed her interest in the Financial Services panel and strongly denied any impropriety.
“Let me be unequivocal: I am seeking an assignment to the committee to be a voice for black and brown homeownership, to help right the historical wrongs of redlining, and to bring meaningful change to a financial system that has favored the wealthy,” she said. “To suggest otherwise is insulting and does a disservice to these communities of color.”
If Hakeem Jeffries had any interest in an ethical House— he doesn’t— he would tell her there is no chance she will ever been anywhere near any committee working ion crypto-regulations and she should have thought about that before selling herself to Bankman-Fried. Expect her to be added to House Financial Services within days.
Besides Crockett, Houchin and Frost, Bankman-Fried bought plenty of freshmen, including people whose previous careers demonstrated the one characteristic he was looking for: comfort with corruption, like Val Hoyle (D-OR), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Morgan McGarvey (D-KY.), Brad Finstad (R-MN), George Santos (R-NY) and Eli Crane (R-AZ).
American Dream Federal Action PAC, a group launched by cryptocurrency executive Ryan Salame, Bankman-Fried’s business partner, spent just over $1 million for Houchin in her bid for an open district in southern Indiana. Houchin’s campaign was not very familiar with the group before it spent in the race— when it first booked airtime in the district, her team worried it would be opposing her candidacy. She beat former Rep. Mike Sodrel and others in a crowded primary for the safe GOP seat.
A spokesman for Houchin said she made no pledges [Why even publish that? Would Politico expect her to say that she did make pledges to FTX and then march off to prison?] to the group on crypto policy stances and that her interest in the Financial Services Committee was entirely unrelated to their spending.
The spending for Crockett is notable because of the scope. She was the single highest recipient of outside spending from Web3 Forward, according to Open Secrets, and the third-highest recipient from Protect Our Future.
In a February 2022 interview with Politico, Crockett said she was unsure why Web3 Forward endorsed her bid.
“I don’t know a lot about crypto,” Crockett said then, adding that the endorsement might be an acknowledgement that she is a “common sense type of lawmaker” on business policies. “I do think that we have to figure out: What is the future of currency? I think that that is going to be the job of those of us in D.C. because we’re talking about the world’s economy.”
Stealing $550 scarves, emptying bank accounts from old ladies he met at a bingo parlor, stealing checkbooks, ripping off GoFundMe dog lovers, falsely claiming his mother died on 9/11 and raising money online for her funeral are all small-time compared to what Santos has in mind. Remember, he said he’d like be Treasury Secretary. McCarthy put him on the Small Business Committee and on the Space, Science and Technology Committee, both of which will allow him to sell his services to deep pocketed criminals when the heat dies down a little. Early yesterday, Michael Gold went in a different direction though, Santos’ flexible ideology. He’s been tacking hard right lately, cozying up with the misfits like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Traitor Greene.
“As a growing number of fellow Republican representatives,” wrote Gold, “called for his resignation, Santos dug in further, appearing last week on Bannon’s War Room… For seven minutes, Santos chatted with Gaetz, who was filling in for Bannon. He spoke little about his political views. Instead, with Gaetz’s support, he swatted away mounting concerns about his lies about his background, his campaign spending and the inquiries he is facing about both ethical violations and potential crimes. Santos’ actions in the House chamber so far this year, his willingness to appear on Bannon’s podcast and the few public hires he has made to his congressional staff all suggest that his stance in Congress, should he remain for his full two-year term, will be further to the right than the one he adopted on the campaign trail.” Keep in mind, he participated in the J-6 insurrection and described himself as a MAGA candidate, so none this should have come as too much of a surprise.
Questions about Santos’ alignment with hard-right groups had already been raised after he attended a gala in Manhattan last month at which white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theorists were also guests. Santos has not answered questions about his presence at the event, which was held by the New York Young Republican Club, a conservative group.
But Santos hired the group’s executive secretary, Viswanag Burra [a crackpot extremist who many people say is a Nazi], as his operations director, according to LegiStorm, an online database that tracks congressional staff members.
Burra declined to comment on his role in Santos’s office, referring questions to the congressman’s new communications director, Naysa Woomer, who did not respond when asked to confirm Burra’s employment.
Burra, who has been seen leading Santos through the halls of the Capitol complex, has a number of ties to provocative right-wing figures. He previously worked as a producer on Bannon’s podcast and, according to LegiStorm, once worked for Gaetz.
He also recently served as a spokesman for Carl Paladino, a Buffalo-area real estate executive and politician with a track record of racist and homophobic comments. Paladino, who ran unsuccessfully in a Republican congressional primary last year, in 2021 praised Adolf Hitler as “the kind of leader we need today” and has boosted conspiracy theories about mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas.
According to LegiStorm, Santos has also hired Rafaello Carone, a staff member in his early 20s who already has a history of working for scandal-plagued lawmakers, as a legislative aide.
Carone was the social media manager for former Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who lost a primary last year amid a swirl of controversies and was recently fined by the House Ethics Committee for promoting a cryptocurrency in which he had a financial interest. That committee has been formally asked to investigate Santos.
Carone’s firm, Liberty & Justice Consulting Firm, says on its website that it does “extreme vetting” for clients and touts its work with Virginians for America First, a Republican-aligned group that questioned the results of the 2020 election and recruited poll watchers to root out purported fraud.
Santos’ chef of staff, Charles Lovett, had been his campaign manager. He previously worked as the political director for Josh Mandel, who unsuccessfully ran in a Senate primary in Ohio as a hard-right, pro-Trump conservative.
…Whether Santos will join the House Freedom Caucus, which is invitation-only, remains unclear.
It's about time the House Freedom Caucus have it's own drag queen. It's been too, too long, don't you think?
this is what happens when you ignore the DLC and slick willie and their heir obamanation and the party's ratfucking of Bernie... and refuse to euthanize that party and replace it with an honorable left party (as I typed those last 3 words I was struck by a spasm... in this fucking shithole?!?!).
You get biden and this fetid bunch; and the inability/refusal of your democraps to even try to defeat the nazis... and, naturally, you get a truly nazi party.
The "Keating 5" has been updated for inflation and TOTAL corruption to the crypto 40, but total corruption means that both parties give total policy influence over money, via that committee, to the crypto crowd. The amounts involved hav…