Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is pressing ahead with his bid for a presidential pardon, even after President Donald Trump said he has no plans to grant clemency.
The former exec, 34, officially filed for a "pardon after completion of sentence," according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney website.
Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2023 during the Biden administration on multiple fraud and conspiracy charges for stealing billions of customers' funds from his now-bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence and is in the process of trying to appeal the conviction.
Over the past year, Bankman-Fried has been active on his X account, praising some of Trump's actions, including the pardon of ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. Bankman-Fried's wooing does not seem to be having an effect on Trump.
In January, Trump told The New York Times in a wide-ranging interview that he has no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried. On Monday, when asked for a comment about Bankman-Fried's renewed effort, a White House spokesperson pointed The Block to previous comments Trump made in January in his interview with the Times.
Bankman-Fried is now at a low-security federal correctional facility in Santa Barbara, California, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
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