SEPTEMBER 20: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) arrives for a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on Russian sanctions, on Capitol Hill, September 20, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Committee held the hearing to discuss additional sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

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• A bipartisan group of senators reportedly sent a letter to Silvergate Monday asking about connections to FTX. 
• The crypto-focused bank previously declined to fully answer FTX-related questions, the senators said. 
• The bank’s reasoning was “simply not an acceptable” rationale, they added.  

A bipartisan group of US senators is pressing Silvergate for more information related to the crypto-focused bank’s ties to FTX.

In a letter addressed to Silvergate CEO Alan Lane on Monday, lawmakers claim that the firm failed to fully answer questions about its relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto exchange when approached in early December. 

The senators include Democrat Elizabeth, along with Republicans Warren Roger Marshall and John Kennedy. 

“We are disappointed by your evasive and incomplete response to our December 5, 2022 letter regarding Silvergate Bank’s role in the improper transfer of FTX customer funds to cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda Research (Alameda),” the letter reads. “We wrote to you seeking information on what appeared to be an egregious failure of your bank’s responsibilities to monitor and report suspicious financial activity.”

FTX founder Bankman-Fried, along with other high-level execs, have been accused of coordinating a fraudulent scheme that involved comingling billions of dollars worth of FTX customer funds with sister trading shop Alameda Research.

Those assets allegedly became deposits into a Silvergate account of an Alameda subsidiary, called North Dimension, according to to the Securities and Exchange Commission. FTX customers were advised to wire funds to North Dimension, a seemingly fake electronics retailer, in an effort to hide that the funds were used for Alameda’s investments. 

Silvergate previously declined to fully answer the lawmakers’ FTX-related questions, citing restrictions on disclosing “confidential supervisory information,” according to the senators’ letter. 

The senators said the bank’s reasoning was “simply not an acceptable rationale,” adding that “both Congress and the public need and deserve the information necessary to understand Silvergate’s role in FTX’s fraudulent collapse.”

Lane previously said in December that Silvergate “conducted significant due diligence on FTX and its related entities, including Alameda Research, both during the onboarding process and through ongoing monitoring.”

Lawmakers gave the bank a February 13 deadline to respond to a new series of questions regarding information on whether the bank was aware that FTX was misusing client funds or if it flagged any transactions as suspicious. 

Silvergate did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

A man walks through Google offices in New York City.

Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress

• Google’s parent company Alphabet is slated to report fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday. 
• Analysts will likely fire off competition questions about the buzzy ChatGPT tool alongside those about the company’s traditional search business. 
• Alphabet’s report arrives after the company announced layoffs of 12,000 employees. 

From massive layoffs to competition prospects from buzzy ChatGPT bot, Wall Street has questions for Alphabet about these issues when the tech heavyweight rolls out its latest quarterly earnings report this week. 

The Google parent’s fourth-quarter financial results are due after the close Wednesday on the heels of a roughly 11% rise for the stock in January. The stock plunged 39% during the rout of Big Tech stocks in 2022. 

The company heads into the earnings report after saying last week it’s laying off 12,000 employees, following two years of “dramatic growth.”

Also last week, the Justice Department and eight states sued Google, claiming it abused its dominance in online advertisement technology. Alphabet said he DOJ’s lawsuit “attempts to pick winners and losers.” in the sector.

Analysts, on average, are looking for revenue to rise 1% to $76.12 billion. Per-share earnings are expected at $1.18. Alphabet enacted a 20-for-1 stock split in July 2022. 

Here’s what Bank of America and Jefferies said they may see from Alphabet’s financial update. 

Jefferies: ‘Search unlikely to be uprooted by ChatGPT’

Analysts on Alphabet’s conference call are likely to ask about ChatGPT, the language bot from OpenAI that displays a human-like ability to respond to written queries. The tool has been surging in popularity since its November debut. Microsoft recently ramped up its investment in OpenAI. 

“ChatGPT vs Google — Bottom Line: Search Unlikely to be Uprooted by ChatGPT,” Jefferies Brett Thill in outlining its “bullish” view on Alphabet in a note published last week. 

Thill said search serves much different use cases than natural language AI chatbots and that search is already moving beyond text to multi-modal, including text and images. 

More broadly, Jefferies sees “several arguments for the [GOOGL] stock to work” in 2023 despite a slowdown in the macroenvironment that may worsen. 

“1) Comps should ease progressively each quarter (gross revs from 23% in 1Q22 to Street est. 2% in 4Q22, and full yr 41% in FY21 to FY22E +10%); 2) potential for cost-cutting measures incl. further headcount reductions to drive upside to current EBITDA ests; 3) share buybacks could exceed 100% of [free cash flow]; and 4) odd years are usually kind to GOOGL stock (on avg up 56% vs down 5.8% in even years).” 

Jefferies has a “buy” rating on Alphabet and a $125 price target. 

BofA: ‘We continue see Google as defensive stock in sector’

Bank of America sees the potential of Alphabet’s stock rising to $119, up 23% from Monday’s close and prior target of $116. It also raised its 2023 earnings estimate to $5.40 a share from $5.25. 

“We assume an FX benefit will offset some incremental core revenue pressure, and expect layoffs to start aiding core Google margins in 2Q, with y/y margins turning positive in 2H’23,” analyst Justin Post wrote in a note Tuesday. 

“Questions on the competitive threat from ChatGPT could be top item on the [analyst conference] call, but we also expect questions on layoffs, the rationale for $14 billion NFL Sunday Ticket deal, product pipeline (Performance Max adoption), Cloud sales pipeline, outlook for Shorts monetization, and regulatory environment (EU DMA & new DOJ lawsuit).” 

“We continue see Google as defensive stock in sector, layoffs & other cost-cutting could lead to 2H margin improvement thesis,” he said. 

BofA expects fourth-quarter core Google margins to be down 566 basis points year over year as headcount growth outpaces search. It sees quarterly earnings of $1.20 a share versus the $1.21 consensus. 

BofA has a “buy” rating on Alphabet.

President Joe Biden.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• The FBI searched Biden’s old office after his lawyers discovered a cache of classified documents there, CBS reported.
• Biden’s representatives cooperated with the search in mid-November, and the FBI did not seek a warrant.
• The DOJ also searched Biden’s home earlier this month, after a second batch of records was discovered there.

The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s old office at the Penn-Biden Center last year, CBS News reported. Agents carried out the search in mid-November, after Biden’s aides discovered 10 classified documents at the office dating back to his time as vice president.

CBS reported that the FBI did not seek a warrant to search the office and that Biden’s representatives cooperated with the sweep. Although the documents’ discovery and the FBI’s search took place in November, the White House did not publicly announce it until earlier this month.

CBS’ reporting is the latest twist in an ongoing controversy involving both Biden and former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of national security information — both of whom now face separate special counsel investigations.

After Biden’s lawyers discovered the initial cache of classified documents in his office in November, they immediately notified the White House counsel’s office, which contacted the National Archives.

The documents were turned over to the Archives soon after, and the FBI began investigating that same month whether classified information had been improperly handled. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed John Lausch, a Trump-era US attorney in Chicago, to handle the inquiry.

In December, Biden’s legal representatives told Lausch that they had uncovered additional classified materials in the garage at Biden’s personal residence in Delaware.

On January 12, after reports surfaced that a second batch of classified documents had been found after the initial sweep of Biden’s old office, Garland took the extraordinary step of appointing a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified information. The move put Garland and the Justice Department in the unprecedented position of overseeing two parallel special counsel investigations into the current and former president’s management of government records.

On January 21, Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer announced that the Justice Department had also searched the president’s Delaware home and discovered half a dozen documents marked classified. Neither Biden nor first lady Jill Biden were present during the search, which lasted 13 hours.

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly pointed to the way the feds have handled the Biden investigation as being tainted by political bias, alleging that Biden has been treated with more leniency than he was when the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last summer.

“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?” Trump wrote on his Twitter-esque website, Truth Social.

But legal experts and DOJ veterans caution against conflating the two inquiries, noting that Biden’s team immediately notified the archives and has been cooperating with the DOJ, while Trump refused to turn over troves of sensitive government records over 18 months of back-and-forth with US officials.

As new details continued spilling out about the DOJ’s investigations into Trump and Biden, CNN also reported last week that classified documents were discovered at former Vice President Mike Pence’s home in Indiana.

According to the report, the FBI is investigating the materials and reviewing how they ended up at Pence’s residence. The former vice president’s team found two boxes that included classified records and four boxes that contained potential presidential records but believed they were courtesy copies of documents the Archives already possessed, according to Politico. Pence sent the six boxes to NARA last week.

The hacking collective CAXXII says the Kremlin has taken surveillance of its own citizens to “a whole new level”.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with Republican lawmakers on Tuesday, pressing the United States to sustain aid to Ukraine to help it fight off Russia’s assault.

Johnson spoke with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican, in his office and is scheduled to speak at a private Republican club in the evening, said Representative Joe Wilson, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Johnson is also scheduled to meet with a group of Republican senators, said U.S. Senator Todd Young, though he said he was unaware of the exact timing.

On Wednesday, Johnson will discuss the need for “Western unity and support for Ukraine and what more can be done against the threat Russia poses” at the Atlantic Council think tank.

The Republicans took over the House from the Democrats at the start of this year and some hardline members among the Republicans have called for an end to U.S. military and other assistance to Ukraine, which amounts to tens of billions of dollars.

“I am here primarily to recognize and pay tribute to the immense U.S. contribution to the security of the Ukrainian people,” Johnson said in a statement.

“My mission is to demonstrate that Ukraine will win – and that there is no conceivable case for delay in further supporting the Ukrainians to win this year. We should have no fear of escalation when it comes to the provision of weaponry.”

McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Johnson, who left office in September following a series of scandals, was prime minister when Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. He sought to position the UK as Ukraine’s top ally in the West and has continued to do so.

During a trip to Ukraine this month, Johnson visited Borodyanka and Bucha, suburbs of the capital Kyiv that became a byword in the West for Russian atrocities. Moscow denies allegations by Ukraine and its Western allies that it has committed war crimes.

In a Washington Post opinion piece published on Monday, Johnson argued for the admission of Ukraine to the NATO military alliance and that the process should start now.

Wilson, who will be among the lawmakers meeting Johnson, is a staunch Ukraine supporter, having even suggested the placement of a bust of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the U.S. Capitol.

Just how long ago did Donald Trump pay off Stormy Daniels over their affair? Since that time Michael Cohen has gone to prison for his role in that scandal, gotten out of prison, and since become a respected political commentator and bestselling book author. Now, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is reportedly finally presenting a criminal case against Trump himself to a grand jury in relation to that scandal. It turns out Cohen has some things to say about it.

Michael Cohen reportedly met with the Manhattan DA’s office two weeks ago regarding this very criminal case. Now that the news has broken that the DA has indeed decided to present the case to a grand jury for indictment, Cohen appeared on the Nicolle Wallace show on Monday and weighed in on things.

Cohen has previously been highly critical of prosecutors for having failed to indict Trump in the Stormy Daniels payoff scheme. After all, if Cohen was sent to prison for carrying out Trump’s instructions, why wouldn’t Trump also be sent to prison for it? But now Cohen believes that Trump really is going to be criminally indicted in New York.

Speaking to Wallace, Michael Cohen said this: “You know how they say a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich? In this case they’re gonna indict the whole pig!” In other words, Cohen thinks this is the real deal. And he has a tendency to be proven right about these things.

The post Michael Cohen slam dunks Donald Trump amid news that Trump is facing criminal indictment in New York appeared first on Palmer Report.

The United States on Tuesday accused Russia of violating the New START Treaty, the last major pillar of post-Cold War nuclear arms control between the two countries, saying Moscow was refusing to allow inspection activities on its territory.

The treaty came into force in 2011 and was extended in 2021 for five more years. It caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

The two countries, which during the Cold War were constrained by a tangle of arms control agreements, still account together for about 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads.

Washington has been keen to preserve the treaty but ties with Moscow are the worst in decades over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an element that could complicate attempts by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to maintain and reach a follow-on agreement.

“Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control,” a State Department spokesperson said in emailed comments.

Moscow in August suspended cooperation with inspections under the treaty, blaming travel restrictions imposed by Washington and its allies after Russian forces invaded neighbor Ukraine in February last year, but said it was still committed to complying with the provisions of the treaty.

The State Department spokesperson added that Russia had a “clear path” for returning to compliance by allowing inspection activities, and that Washington remains ready to work with Russia to fully implement the treaty.

“The New START Treaty remains in the national security interests of the United States,” the spokesperson said.

Talks between Moscow and Washington on resuming inspections under New START were due to take place in November in Egypt, but Russia postponed them and neither side has set a new date.

On Monday, Russia told the United States that the treaty could expire in 2026 without a replacement because it said Washington was trying to inflict “strategic defeat” on Moscow in Ukraine.

Asked if Moscow could envisage there being no nuclear arms control treaty after 2026, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the RIA state new agency: “This is quite a possible scenario.”

The United States has supplied more than $27 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, including more than 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft rocket systems, 8,500 Javelin anti-tank missile systems and 1 million 155mm artillery rounds.

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