November 17, 2022
On June 9th, AFP reported about American Dream Federal Action, a $15 million Canary Committee PAC who supported Alabama's U.S. Senate-elect Katie Britt. She benefited from almost $2 million of the PAC's funds. The PAC was funded by Ryan Salame, Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, a subsidiary of FTX.
FTX is now involved in the most talked about financial scandal in years. While most of the FTX backed PACs funding helped Democrats, Katie Britt's benefit was second highest from the American Dream Federal Action PAC among 2022 Republican candidates. Those benefits included the PAC's TV ads.
UPDATE: Sunday, November 20th - Connecting the Dots ...
Ryan Salame, Co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets at the time of the FTX collapse, contributed a total of $5,000 directly to Britt for Alabama Inc in June, 2022, the maximum allowed by law.
Axios recently referred to Mr. Salame as "a top Bankman-Fried lieutenant at FTX". According to this bio, "Ryan assisted Sam Bankman-Fried with the founding and creation of FTX Trading Ltd, the parent company of FTX Digital Markets Ltd (FDM) before becoming CEO of FTX Digital Markets in September 1, 2021".
According to Opensecrets.org, for the 2022 election cycle, Ryan Salame was the 14th largest individual political contributor overall, while the CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was the 6th highest contributor overall.
This is where the story gets more interesting ... and more complex.
In April, 2022, the Mitch McConnell aligned Senate Leadership Fund contributed $2 million to Alabama’s Future PAC, which supported Katie Britt and opposed Mo Brooks. Ryan Salame contributed $2.5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund in August, 2022.
In June 2022, FTX’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried donated $105,000 to the Alabama Conservatives Fund. The only political candidate to benefit from Alabama Conservatives Fund was Senator-elect Katie Britt.
As AFP reported on June 6th, Alabama Conservatives Fund’s Executive Director is Dalton Dismukes, a political consultant and member of the ALGOP Steering Committee. The Treasurer of the Senate Leadership Fund is Caleb Crosby, a former George W Bush White House staffer. In June, 2022, the tenant for the Alabama Conservatives Fund's 3rd Avenue North, Birmingham, AL address was listed as being Crosby Ottenhoff Group LLC. Crosby and Ottenhoff are commonly found names in Republican circles.
The story of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX has been widely publicized over the past two weeks. However, the Alabama state-wide online "news" outlets have again been missing in action.
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