Senate Tells SBF: Your Pardon Tour Has Officially Been Unanimously Unsubscribed 🚫

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a resolution declaring that Sam Bankman-Fried should "under no circumstances" receive a pardon or commutation of his 25-year prison sentence, with the chamber's full membership registering opposition to clemency for the convicted FTX founder. The measure, S. Res. 772, cleared by unanimous consent—a procedural path that requires no senator to object—making the statement a unified expression of congressional sentiment, though one without legal force.

The resolution affirms the Senate's commitment to "the rule of law and integrity of the United States financial system." It cannot constrain the president's constitutional authority to grant clemency. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Rubén Gallego (D-AZ), the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee's digital assets subcommittee, introduced the measure on June 17. Lummis, a prominent crypto advocate in Congress, has previously characterized Bankman-Fried as someone who "had his day in court," while a spokesperson for her office told Decrypt that "SBF has clearly ramped up his pardon campaign and Senator Lummis wants Fried to know she and her colleagues think he's right where he belongs." Gallego's message was more direct: "Keep him locked up."

Bankman-Fried was convicted in November 2023 on seven counts tied to the 2022 collapse of FTX, once one of the world's largest crypto exchanges. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in what prosecutors described as one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, with American customers losing more than $8 billion. A federal appeals court upheld his conviction last month, narrowing the avenues available to him.

The Senate's action adds to a series of setbacks for his clemency push. President Donald Trump said in January that he had no plans to pardon him, and has already extended clemency to other crypto figures, including Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, BitMEX co-founders Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Samuel Reed, and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. With courts, the White House, and the full Senate now aligned against him, Bankman-Fried's path to freedom is narrowing further.