Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is to lead an investigation into the collapse of corrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, despite her ties to the company’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Waters will lead the probe in her role as chair of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.
Chairwoman Waters announced that her Committee will hold a hearing next month to investigate the collapse of FTX.
As Slay News has reported, Bankman-Fried was the Democratic Party’s second-largest donor during the 2020 election and 2022 midterms.
In the 2022 midterm election cycle, he donated almost $40 million to Democrat candidates, coming second only to radical billionaire George Soros.
Following the collapse of FTX, it emerged that the company was laundering money through Ukraine and funneling it back to Democrats in the U.S.
Bankman-Fried also admitted that FTX served as a laundromat for the Ukraine government to launder U.S. taxpayer money using cryptocurrency.
In December 2021, Bankman-Fried and five other cryptocurrency exchange executives testified before Waters’ House Financial Services Committee.
At the end of the hearing, a video shows Waters blowing a kiss to As Bankman-Fried as he was leaving the room.
WATCH:
Maxine Waters just blew @SBF_FTX a kiss. Safe to say that went well.😘 pic.twitter.com/C8I90fdmqW
— chochaymon (@ElliottFryback) December 8, 2021
Despite the obvious conflict of interest, Waters announced this week that she will lead a “bipartisan” investigation into FTX.
A statement from Waters’ Committee reads:
Today, the Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), and the Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC), announced a bipartisan hearing into the collapse of FTX and the broader consequences for the digital asset ecosystem.
In December, the Committee expects to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, Binance, FTX, and related entities, among others.
“The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, this event is just one out of many examples of cryptocurrency platforms that have collapsed just this past year. That’s why it is with great urgency that I, along with my colleague Ranking Member McHenry, announce the Committee’s intention to hold a hearing to investigate the collapse of FTX,” said Chairwoman Waters.
“As Chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, I have led the effort in examining and investigating the digital assets marketplace, and know that we need legislative action to ensure that digital assets entities cannot operate in the shadows outside of robust federal oversight and clear rules of the road. I look forward to holding this important hearing, and uncovering all that Congress must do to ensure this never happens again.”
Just a victim of his own success! pic.twitter.com/n73TVWF2zl
— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) November 17, 2022
