All posts tagged "Ryan Salame"

A government agency best known for hunting down federal fugitives has become wildly successful at capturing another kind of target — money from political campaigns.

More than 150 political campaigns and committees — including well-known politicians such as House Speaker Emerita Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — have together surrendered to U.S. Marshals upward of $1.35 million in donations from executives of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, according to a Raw Story analysis of Federal Election Commission data.

That’s a nearly 10-fold increase in FTX-related campaign contribution forfeitures since mid-May....

More than 30 federal political candidates and party committees have together surrendered at least $160,000 worth of donor dollars to the U.S. Marshals Service in recent weeks, according to a Raw Story analysis of federal campaign records.

It’s an all-but-unprecedented relinquishing of precious campaign cash to a government agency best known for hunting down suspected criminals, and even veteran election officials say they’ve never seen anything quite like it in U.S. politics.

But this isn’t any routine situation: Most of these “disgorgements” stem from contributions made by executives of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, including former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Raw Story’s analysis indicates. And the Department of Justice is urging campaigns to give the money up....