Before it collapsed this month, FTX stood apart from many rivals in the largely unsupervised crypto industry by boasting it was the “most regulated” exchange on the planet and inviting closer scrutiny from authorities.

Now, company documents seen by Reuters reveal the strategy and tactics behind founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s regulatory agenda, including the previously unreported terms of a deal announced earlier this year with IEX Group, the U.S. stock trading platform featured in Michael Lewis’s book “Flash Boys” about fast, computer-driven trading.

As part of that deal, Bankman-Fried bought a 10% stake in IEX, with an option to buy it out completely in the next two and half years, according to a June 7 document. The partnership gave the 30-year-old executive the opportunity to lobby IEX’s regulator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on crypto regulation.

That deal and others referenced in the documents, which include business updates, meeting minutes and strategy papers, illuminate one of FTX’s broader goals: quickly crafting a congenial regulatory framework for itself by acquiring stakes in companies that already had licenses from authorities, shortcutting the often drawn-out approval process.

FTX spent some $2 billion on “acquisitions for regulatory purposes,” the FTX documents seen by Reuters from a Sept 19 meeting show. Last year, for example, it bought LedgerX LLC, a futures exchange, which gave it three Commodity Futures Trading Commission licenses in one swoop. The licenses gave FTX access to U.S. commodities derivatives markets as a regulated exchange. Derivatives are securities that derive their value from another asset.

FTX also saw its regulatory status as a way of luring new capital from major investors, the documents show. In documents to support its ask for hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, it held out its licenses as a key competitive advantage. The “regulatory moats,” it said, created barriers for rivals and would give it access to lucrative new markets and partnerships beyond the reach of unregulated entities.

“FTX has the cleanest brand in crypto,” the exchange proclaimed in a June document presented to investors.

Bankman-Fried did not respond to a request for comment on questions about FTX’s regulatory strategy. FTX did not respond to requests for comment.

An SEC spokesperson declined to comment for this article. The CFTC also declined to comment.

In a text exchange this week with Vox, Bankman-Fried made an about-face on regulatory matters. Asked if his prior praise of regulations was “just PR,” he said in a sequence of texts: “yeah, just PR… fuck regulators… they make everything worse… they don’t protect customers at all.”

An IEX spokesperson declined to confirm details of the transaction with FTX, except to say that FTX’s “small minority stake” in IEX cannot be sold to a third party without its consent. “We are currently evaluating our legal options with respect to the prior transaction,” the spokesperson said.

FTX collapsed last week after a futile bid by Bankman-Fried to raise emergency funds. It had come under some regulatory oversight through the dozens of licenses it picked up via its many acquisitions. But that didn’t protect its customers and investors, who now face losses totaling billions of dollars. As Reuters reported, FTX had been secretly taking risks with customer funds, using $10 billion in deposits to prop up a trading firm owned by Bankman-Fried.

Four lawyers said the fact that Bankman-Fried was courting regulators while taking massive risks with customer funds without anyone noticing exposes a yawning regulatory gap in the cryptocurrency industry. “It’s a patchwork of global regulators — and even domestically there are huge gaps,” said Aitan Goelman, an attorney with Zuckerman Spaeder and former prosecutor and CFTC enforcement director. “That’s the fault of a regulatory system that has taken too long to adjust to the advent of crypto.”

A person familiar with the SEC’s thinking on crypto regulation said the agency believes crypto firms are illegally operating outside of U.S. securities laws and instead lean on other licenses that provide minimal consumer protection. “Those representations, while nominally true, don’t cover their activity,” the person said.

‘STEP 1: LICENSES’

Bankman-Fried had big ambitions for FTX, which by this year had grown to more than $1 billion in revenues and accounted for about 10% of trading in the global crypto market, from a standing start in 2019. He wanted to build a financial app, where users could trade stocks and tokens, transfer money and bank, according to an undated document titled, “FTX Roadmap 2022.”

“Step 1” toward that goal, the “Roadmap” document said, “is to become as licensed as reasonably possible.”

“Partially this is to make sure that we’re regulated and compliant; partially this is to be able to expand our product offering,” the document said.

That’s where FTX’s acquisition spree came in, according to the documents. Instead of applying for every license, which can take years and sometimes uncomfortable questions, Bankman-Fried decided to buy them.

But the strategy also had its limits: At times, the companies it acquired didn’t have the precise licenses it needed, the documents show.

One of FTX’s goals, according to the documents, was to open up the U.S. derivatives markets to its customers in the country. It estimated the market would bring additional trading volume to the tune of $50 billion a day, generating millions of dollars in revenue. To do that, it needed to persuade the CFTC to amend one of the licenses held by LedgerX, FTX’s newly acquired futures exchange.

The application process went on for months, and FTX had to pony up $250 million for a default insurance fund, a standard requirement. FTX anticipated the CFTC could ask it to increase the fund to $1 billion, according to minutes of a March meeting of its advisory board.

FTX collapsed before it could get the approval, and has now withdrawn its application.

Buying companies for licenses also had other advantages, the documents reviewed by Reuters demonstrate: It could give Bankman-Fried the access he desired to regulators.

A prime example is the IEX deal, which was announced in April. In a joint interview to CNBC, Bankman-Fried and IEX CEO Brad Katsuyama said they wanted “to shape regulation that ultimately protects investors.” What matters the most here, Bankman-Fried added, is that “there is transparency and protection against fraud.”

Reuters could not determine how much FTX paid for the stake.

Bankman-Fried was invited to meet SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and other SEC officials along with Katsuyama in March.

A source close to IEX said the purpose of the meeting was to let the SEC know in advance about its deal with FTX, which had not been publicly announced at that point, and to discuss the possibility of IEX creating a trading venue in digital assets, such as bitcoin. FTX’s role was to provide the crypto-trading infrastructure, the source said.

SEC officials outright rejected their initial plan because it would have involved the creation of a non-exchange trading venue that is more lightly regulated, something the agency opposes for cryptocurrencies, the source familiar with the SEC’s thinking said.

Reuters could not determine the extent of Bankman-Fried’s involvement in subsequent conversations with the SEC. In their mind, SEC officials had agreed to meet with Katsuyama in March, and Bankman-Fried was just tagging along, the source familiar with the SEC’s thinking said. He kept mostly silent during the meeting, with Katsuyama in the “driver’s seat,” the source added.

Whatever his involvement, FTX talked up its discussions to its investors. In a September meeting of its advisory board, FTX said talks with the SEC were “extremely constructive.”

“We are likely to have pole position there,” it said, according to the meeting minutes.

The person familiar with the SEC’s thinking said they would dispute FTX was in the “pole position.” Anything the SEC did to regulate crypto trading would be open to all market participants, the source said.

The source close to IEX said the exchange never entered into any operational agreements with FTX, adding that it never got to that point.

A May FTX document provides a rundown of FTX’s contacts with individual regulators. The document, which has not been previously reported, shows how in most cases FTX was able to resolve the issues that cropped up.

In February, for example, South African authorities published a warning to consumers that FTX and other crypto exchanges were not authorized to operate there. So FTX entered into a commercial agreement with a local exchange to continue providing the services. “FTX is now fully regularised in respect of its current activities in South Africa,” FTX said.

The regulator, South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority, did not respond to a request for comment.

The May document also shows that FTX had a brush with the SEC. The SEC had conducted inquiries earlier this year into how crypto companies were handling customer deposits. Some firms were offering interest on deposits, which the SEC said could make them securities and should be registered under its rules. In the list of its regulatory interactions, FTX noted that the inquiry was looking at whether those assets were being “lent out or otherwise used for operational purposes.”

This month, as Reuters has reported, it emerged that FTX had done just that, moving billions of dollars in client funds to Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research.

In the May document, FTX said the SEC’s exam staff, which scrutinizes market practices that could present a risk to investors, was concerned about a different matter: a rewards program that it offered to customers, under which it paid interest on crypto deposits.

According to the document, FTX told the regulator it did not have the same issues as products from other providers that the agency had investigated.

“We confirmed these were solely rewards based and do not involve lending (or other use) of the deposited crypto,” FTX wrote. The SEC wrote back, saying it had completed its “informal inquiry” and did not need further information “at this time.”

The SEC had no comment on the inquiry. In an email to Reuters, Bankman-Fried wrote: “FTX’s response there was accurate; FTX US’s rewards program did not involve lending out any assets.”

China’s belligerence towards Taiwan and the future of the island’s democracy are taking centre stage in campaigns ahead of local elections next week, a key test of the ruling party’s support before a presidential vote in early 2024.

The Nov. 26 mayoral and councillor polls are nominally about domestic issues such as transport and the COVID-19 pandemic rather than China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory. Those running do not have direct say in China policy.

But President Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have turned up the heat in the past week or so, portraying the poll as a way to stand up to Beijing and show the world Taiwan’s democracy won’t give in to threats.

Tsai gave a fiery speech at a huge election rally on Saturday, saying this was more than just a simple local election given China’s menace, a message other senior DPP members have pressed home.

“Russia has invaded Ukraine and Taiwan is facing the threat of China,” Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters this week. “The whole world is watching whether the Taiwanese people want to choose a pro-China political party or family, or a candidate or political party that defends democracy and supports national sovereignty and independence.”

China mounted war games near the island in August after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, and China’s military activities have continued around Taiwan.

Although Tsai and the DPP swept the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), performed strongly in the 2018 local elections, winning 15 cities and counties to the DPP’s six.

The KMT, which traditionally favours closer ties with China but strongly denies being pro-Beijing, has hammered the DPP on its handling of the pandemic, especially after a surge in domestic cases this year.

It is now firing back at DPP implications that a vote for the KMT is essentially a vote for China, a strategy that took Tsai and the DPP into a second term in power in 2020.

KMT Chairman Eric Chu told supporters on Saturday the party would defend Taiwan’s freedoms.

The party has bristled at the China issue and DPP’s claims that it is the only defender of democracy.

“It’s misleading political language,” said Ho Chih-yung, the KMT’s deputy head of communications, who is also standing for election as a city councillor in the tech hub of Hsinchu.

“The China issue is not an issue for local elections,” he told Reuters. “The election is nothing to do with a Chinese invasion.”

The DPP and KMT are focusing efforts on populous and wealthy northern Taiwan, especially the capital, Taipei, whose mayor is from the small Taiwan People’s Party and is barred by term limits from running again.

There, the DPP has put up former health minister Chen Shih-chung, the architect of Taiwan’s pandemic policy, against the telegenic Wayne Chiang, a rising KMT star.

Even if the DPP does badly next week, it does not mean they will lose the presidency in 2024.

“It’s two different elections. In 2018 we lost the election but we won in 2020. But I think the political momentum is very important,” senior DPP lawmaker Lo Chih-cheng told Reuters.

(This story has been refiled to remove repeated word “local” from the headline)

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They all went down in spectacular flames. Of course, they did. Because these midterms were a referendum on lots of things, but one MAJOR thing that loomed large was election denialism. And the deniers lost.

Blake Masters of Arizona was an election denier running for the Senate. He lost.

Mark Finchem was an election denier running for Arizona secretary-of-state. He lost.

Doug Mastriano wanted to be the state of Pennsylvania’s next Governor. He went down hard — and lost.

Tudor Dixon wanted very much to be the state of Michigan’s next Governor. She lost.

Kristina Karamo of Michigan wanted to be Michigan’s secretary of state. She lost.

New Jersey resident and dog killer Mehmet wanted to be Pennsylvania’s next senator. The American people sent him back to New Jersey. (sorry, Jersey.)

And last and certainly least, the witch of Arizona, Kari Lake, an election denier of the utmost degree, was soundly defeated. SHE LOST. (That one deserved all caps.)

And then there were — none. By and large, election denialism lost bigly. It went down in flames and turned to ash. If this election was a battle of good and evil, good won.

And now we can happily say goodbye to some of the biggest creep show candidates we’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing. Because they tried to steal democracy and they tried to corrupt the process. They tried wickedness over good, rage over hope, and hate over love. And then they all lost.

The post Then there were none appeared first on Palmer Report.

(NewsNation) — Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday the U.S. will continue to explore ways to stop Venezuelan migrants who seek to enter the country after a federal judge blocked Title 42 earlier this week.

Mayorkas told lawmakers Thursday that migration patterns have changed dramatically.

“When I was deputy secretary we were very concerned about migration from the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras,” Mayorkas said. “We have encountered now, the highest level of encounters by Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans and that changed demographic makes the challenge even more acute because our diplomatic relations with these countries is obviously quite strained and we’re unable to remove as easily individuals from these countries of origin.”

The southern border was a hot topic leading up to last week’s midterm elections it continued to make headlines in the days that followed.

Here’s a summary of what happened this week:

Title 42

Title 42 allowed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to turn away migrants with the goal of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the COVID-19 pandemic-era public health policy. That same judge issued another order Wednesday granting a stay — that is, a period of time before his previous order takes effect.

DHS now has until Dec. 21 to transition away from Title 42 and send additional resources to the border.

The department’s approach for Venezuelans, which expanded Title 42 along with a program that allowed for 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the country, has been underway for just a few weeks, NewsNation partner The Hill reported.

Busing migrants

As of Monday, Texas has bused more than 13,200 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a tweet earlier this week. Of those:

• 8,300 were taken to D.C.
• 3,700 were taken to NYC
• 1,200 were taken to Chicago

Abbott also announced on Tuesday that a group of migrants departed for Philadelphia, where they arrived Wednesday morning.

Philadelphia’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and Office of Emergency Management coordinated with 15 community-based organizations to plan a local response for the migrants’ arrival, city officials said.

Recently re-elected Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also has a history of transporting migrants across state lines.

A federal lawsuit filed in September accused DeSantis of acting in “inhumane and repugnant conduct” when he arranged to have immigrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard.

The migrants who filed the suit say they were given $10 McDonald’s gift certificates and were promised that if they boarded airplanes to other states, they would be met with jobs,  housing, educational opportunities and other assistance.

They were told they were going to Boston or Washington, D.C., but instead landed in Martha’s Vineyard, according to the suit.

Abbott’s ‘invasion’ declaration

Abbott made headlines Tuesday after tweeting that he was invoking the state constitution’s invasion clause in an effort to better secure the border. The tweet included a screengrab of bullet-pointed border actions that Abbott laid out in a recent letter to county judges — but none of those efforts were new, despite the timing of Abbott’s tweet.

Abbott cited the same clause four months earlier in a July executive order with the intention of taking “unprecedented measures to fight back against the invasion at our border.”

Abbott recently won an election to keep his seat over Democrat Beto O’Rourke. Immigration and the border were among several issues the candidates debated.

Dutch judges convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian man in absentia of murder for their role in the shooting down of Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of 298 passengers and crew, and handed them life sentences.

Ukraine welcomed the ruling, which will have implications for other court cases Kyiv has filed against Russia, while Moscow called the ruling “scandalous” and said it would not extradite its citizens.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam and was bound for Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of this year’s conflict.

The ruling came as a relief to victims’ family members, more than 200 of whom attended the court in person, wiping away tears as the judgement was read.

“Only the most severe punishment is fitting to retaliate for what the suspects have done, which has caused so much suffering to so many victims and so many surviving relatives,” Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.

The three men convicted were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.

The three were all found to have helped to arrange the transport into Ukraine of the Russian military BUK missile system that was used to shoot down the plane, though they were not the ones that physically pulled the trigger.

They are fugitives and believed to be in Russia. A fourth former suspect, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges.

The incident in 2014 left the plane’s wreckage and victims’ remains scattered across fields of corn and sunflowers.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed the Donetsk province where the plane was shot down.

“The families of victims wanted the truth and they wanted justice to be done and those responsible to be punished and that is what happened. I am pretty satisfied,” Piet Ploeg, who heads a foundation representing victims, told Reuters. Ploeg’s brother, his brother’s wife and his nephew died on MH17.

Meryn O’Brien of Australia, who lost her 25-year old son Jack, said she felt relieved. “Everyone was relieved the process has come to an end, and it is very fair, and it has been meticulous.”

“There’s no celebration,” said Jordan Withers of Britain, whose uncle Glenn Thomas died. “Nothing is going to bring any of the victims back.” They came from 10 different countries.

The judgment included a 16 million euro damages award.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the first sentences handed down over MH17 as an “important decision” by the court in The Hague.

“But it is necessary that those who ordered it also end up in the dock because the feeling of impunity leads to new crimes,” he wrote on Twitter. “We have to dispel this illusion. Punishment for all Russian atrocities – both then and now – will be inevitable.”

The ruling found that Russia had “overall control” over the forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine from mid May 2014.

“This is groundbreaking,” said Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor of international law at Amsterdam University. The ruling was “authoritative” and would likely boost Ukraine’s other international cases against Russia relating to the 2014 conflict.

Judge Steenhuis said there was ample evidence from eyewitness testimony and photographs which tracked the missile system’s movements into and back out of Ukraine to Russia.

“There is no reasonable doubt” that MH17 was shot down by a Russian missile system, Steenhuis said.

Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said “throughout the trial the court was under unprecedented pressure from Dutch politicians, prosecutors and the media to impose a politically motivated outcome”.

“We deeply regret that the District Court in The Hague disregarded the principles of impartial justice in favour of the current political situation, thus causing a serious reputational blow to the entire judicial system in the Netherlands,” it added.

Prosecutors had charged the four men with shooting down an airplane and with murder in a trial held under Dutch law, as more than half of the victims were Dutch. Phone call intercepts that formed a key part of the evidence suggested the men believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet.

Steenhuis said that, while that counted for something in terms of lessening the severity of their criminal responsibility, they still had a murderous intent and the consequences of their actions were huge.

Of the suspects, only Pulatov had pleaded not guilty via lawyers he hired to represent him. The others were tried in absentia and none attended the trial.

The police investigation was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.

Thursday’s ruling is not the final word on holding people accountable for MH17, Dutch and Australian authorities said.

Andy Kraag, the head of the police investigation, said research was continuing into possible suspects higher in the chain of command. Investigators are also looking at the crew of the missile system which launched the fatal rocket.

The Dutch and Australian governments, which hold Russia responsible, have started a proceeding against the Russian Federation at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump signed checks for Christmas bonuses for executives at his namesake company as if they were independent contractors, longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg testified on Thursday.

But Weisselberg said Trump did not conspire with him on the tax fraud scheme for which the Trump Organization is on trial.

Paying employees as independent contractors is one way prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office say Trump’s real estate company misled tax authorities during a 15-year period. The scheme also included paying personal expenses for employees, prosecutors said.

Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing. Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August and agreed to testify as part of a plea deal.

Weisselberg said on Thursday that he, controller Jeffrey McConney, and a handful of other executives at Trump’s real estate company between around 2005 and 2017 received bonuses from Trump Organization companies as non-employee compensation that saved them and the company taxes.

“For years, Donald Trump always wanted to sign the bonus checks,” Weisselberg said. “I would usually bring them in.”

Asked by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger if Trump understood they were for employees, Weisselberg said, “Correct.”

But under cross-examination by Trump Organization lawyer Alan Futerfas, Weisselberg said he conspired with McConney, but not with any member of the Trump family.

“It was my own personal greed that led to this,” said Weisselberg, who is on paid leave from the company. He testified that he is still receiving his salary of $640,000 per year and hopes to get another $500,000 bonus in January.

Weisselberg, 75, admitted to evading taxes on $1.76 million of income when he pleaded guilty. McConney is immune from prosecution for the tax fraud because he testified before the grand jury that indicted both Weisselberg and the Trump Organization.

The company has pleaded not guilty and has argued that Weisselberg acted to benefit himself.

Weisselberg on Thursday also said Trump cut checks for his grandchildren’s private school tuition. He said Trump himself offered to make the payments after Weisselberg saw him do so for his own grandchildren’s tuition.

“I said, ‘Don’t forget I’m going to pay you back for this,'” Weisselberg said. But he said he and Trump never discussed how.

Weisselberg said he eventually reduced his salary and bonus by the amount of the tuition payments Trump covered, as well as rent for a luxury Manhattan apartment paid for by the company. That reduced his taxable income.

The questionable practices eventually came to an end in 2017 when Trump became president, Weisselberg said.

“We were going through an entire cleanup process of the company to make sure that since Mr. Trump is now president, everything was being done properly,” Weisselberg said.

Under questioning by Futerfas, Weisselberg said he betrayed the trust the company placed in him.

Asked whether he was embarrassed by what he did, he choked up and replied, “More than you can imagine.”

I realize how much what I’m about to tell you, brothers and sisters, sounds like idle gossip, but sometimes that’s where real leaks come from. So here it is: according to “The View” host Sunny Hostin, one of her sources inside the Justice Department said that an indictment is coming down, it’s coming for Donald Trump and it’s coming sometime in the next 30 to 90 days.

Let’s put that in subjective terms, shall we? That is, sometime between ten days before Christmas and Valentine’s Day, somewhere between 3 and 9 Scaramuccis from now, Donald J. Trump v. The People of the United States of America will become official. Donald Trump will be criminally indicted by the very same government he used to be in charge of.

I know it’s only symbolic but I’m kind of partial to Valentine’s Day. I would then think of it as the St. Valentine’s Day massacre 2.0. I like the fact that it’s, symbolically, a bad news day for punks and mobsters. Or maybe it should be Groundhog Day so we can, metaphorically speaking, enjoy it over and over and over again. Or New Year’s Day would be nice, symbolising a new beginning. Christmas Day would be awfully nice too. I know there would be a lot of screaming in MAGAland about that, but that’s okay with me.

All I know is, when it comes, I plan to enjoy it. I’m gonna have me a little schadenfreude party inside my head. I plan to spend the whole day smiling. I feel like an abused child or the victim of a bully that knows in advance that his abuser or his bully is about to get a giant whipping.

Of course, if all this is true we all need to manage our expectations. It won’t mean that Trump will immediately go to prison. There’s Due Process to think about too. If he’s indicted he will need to be arraigned, a trial date — unquestionably billed as the Trial of the Century if not the Trial of the Millennium — will be set. That date will probably be sometime far into 2023, possibly the end. The trial itself could take anywhere from 9 to 18 months for it to play out. It might even be televised, and become one of the greatest entertainment spectacles in world history.

The trial will almost certainly slop over into the 2024 presidential election. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Will Trump become, by then, so toxically unpopular that he will be a burden on the Republican Party? Or will he remain popular with his poisonous base, so much so that he divides the party and the Democrats will sweep the presidential election as well as the race for the House and the Senate? I don’t see any way that the whole thing won’t be good for us.

Whatever happens, brothers and sisters, we truly live in interesting times. One thing I do know: Trump’s candidacy will not serve as some kind of criminal prophylactic. He may fool himself, but declaring himself a candidate for the presidency will not save him from an indictment. It will just prove to be one more contest for Trump, and like most contests he’s fought in his miserable life, it’s just another one he’s going to lose. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

The post Is this the news we’ve been waiting for? appeared first on Palmer Report.

Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) last week requested that a federal judge give Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes a “fair and just sentence.”

Holmes, who was convicted in January on four counts of defrauding investors and faces up to 20 years in prison, “has within her a sincere desire to help others” by fighting world hunger and climate change, Booker wrote in a letter to Judge Edward Davila. “I knew Ms. Holmes for about six years before charges were brought.”

Davila is expected to issue a sentence Friday for Holmes, who was found guilty of lying to investors about her company’s blood testing machines, which she falsely claimed could run multiple tests on a single drop of blood. Theranos was once valued at $9 billion.

Booker’s letter comes as critics compare Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto company FTX, which is under federal investigation for defrauding investors of billions of dollars, to Holmes’s failed company.

Theranos made Holmes a favorite among Democrats and the Obama administration, which named her a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. Then-vice president Joe Biden toured her Newark, Calif., facilities in 2015, praising the company for its “confidence.”

“Talk about being inspired,” Biden said at the event. “This is inspiration. It is amazing to me, Elizabeth, what you’ve been able to do.”

Former president Bill Clinton hosted Holmes at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in 2015. The discussion revolved around bringing “equality” into health care.

The post Cory Booker Implores Judge To Give Theranos Fraudster Holmes a ‘Fair’ Sentence appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.