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Trump says he won’t pardon jailed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence for fraud, despite clemency attempts; Bankman-Fried was a major Biden donor in 2020, while Trump has pardoned other crypto figures in the past.

Trump says he won’t pardon jailed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence for fraud, despite clemency attempts; Bankman-Fried was a major Biden donor in 2020, while Trump has pardoned other crypto figures in the past.
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Donald Trump has said he does not plan to pardon jailed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, distancing himself from clemency efforts tied to one of the largest fraud cases in crypto history. In a New York Times interview earlier in 2026, Trump stated he had “no intention” of granting clemency to Bankman-Fried, despite the former FTX CEO’s subsequent formal application for a presidential pardon through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. Bankman-Fried is serving a 25‑year federal sentence after being convicted for orchestrating a multibillion‑dollar fraud involving FTX customer funds. The stance is politically notable because Bankman-Fried was a major Democratic and Joe Biden donor in the 2020 election cycle, and his downfall triggered intense scrutiny of political donations and lobbying by crypto firms. Trump, by contrast, has previously used his clemency powers in high‑profile crypto‑adjacent cases, such as the 2021 pardon of Ripple‑related figure Arthur Hayes’s co-founder’s sentence reduction discussions and other financial crime defendants, making his refusal to extend the same to Bankman-Fried a point of contrast in how different crypto figures are treated. The case remains a touchstone in U.S. debates over crypto regulation, white‑collar accountability, and the intersection of digital asset money flows with electoral politics.

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