Camila Grigera Naón
Two senators don’t want Sam Bankman-Fried out of prison. On Wednesday, Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) introduced a resolution urging the executive branch to ignore the FTX cofounder’s formal bid for a pardon. The resolution, which is not explicitly addressed to President Donald Trump, asserts that Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence “serves the interests of justice” and wasn’t the product of an unfair investigation into the onetime crypto billionaire’s crimes, which Bankman-Fried has claimed since his conviction.
“Sam Bankman-Fried has clearly ramped up his pardon campaign, and Senator Lummis wants Fried to know [she] and her colleagues think he’s exactly where he belongs,” a spokesperson from Lummis’s office told Fortune.
In a statement, Gallego agreed: “He has shown no remorse for his crimes and has instead tried to laughably claim he is a victim of ‘lawfare.’ What a joke. Keep him locked up.”
The two members of Congress, who are both part of the Senate Banking Committee, say they aim to quickly pass the resolution, which cannot block a presidential pardon but would make clear that senators oppose Bankman-Fried’s push for clemency.
The push for clemency
In 2023, Bankman-Fried was convicted of orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, siphoning billions of dollars in customer funds from the crypto exchange FTX into his trading firm, Alameda Research. He was found guilty on seven counts, including multiple fraud and money-laundering conspiracies.
Bankman-Fried’s clemency push comes after Trump has granted a string of pardons to not only prominent crypto figures—including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht—but also other white-collar offenders, like former private equity executive David Gentile.
Amid Trump’s willingness to dole out pardons to crypto criminals, Bankman-Fried’s parents have reportedly courted people in Trump’s orbit in hopes of winning the president’s favor—a sharp turn for the FTX cofounder, who was once a mega-donor to Democrats. As part of that outreach, he even sat for an unauthorized prison interview with conservative TV host Tucker Carlson in March 2025.
As of Wednesday, the Justice Department’s public records showed Bankman-Fried’s pardon request as “pending.” His clemency effort also comes after he exhausted key appeals in the courts, turning the White House into one of his last remaining avenues for relief.
Still, his odds of a pardon remain slim. When asked whether Trump may clear Bankman-Fried of his sentence, a White House spokesperson pointed to Trump’s comments in January, where the president said he had no plans to do so.
