Democrats and Republicans put pressure on SBF to appear before Congress

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, has been separately invited by the leadership of the US House Financial Services Committee to show up at an inquiry hearing scheduled for December 13.

Maxine Waters, the Democratic chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and Patrick McHenry, the Republican ranking member, asked SBF to testify at a hearing to look into the circumstances of FTX's collapse in tweets on December 2. Unknown is whether the former FTX CEO was supposed to appear in person or virtually from the Bahamas.

Waters stated, “[Sam Bankman-Fried], we appreciate that you have been open in your discussions about what transpired at FTX. “The company's customers, investors, and others will benefit from your willingness to talk to the public,”

You have a responsibility to “try to do what's right” and to “help customers out here,” as you [Sam Bankman-Fried] stated, said McHenry. “Testify before the House Financial Services Committee on December 13 if this is a true statement.”

The House committee stated in November that it anticipated hearing from organizations and people connected to FTX's demise, including Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, and Binance.

On November 11, the major cryptocurrency exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and subsequent filings revealed the company might owe more than 1 million creditors money.

On December 1, senators from the Senate Agriculture Committee in the United States questioned Rostin Behnam, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, about the demise of FTX and its effects on conventional financial markets.

Without additional authority for the financial regulator, Behnam cited "gaps in a federal regulatory framework" that could potentially result in investors losing money in the collapse of another significant exchange.

Crypto Twitter users said Bankman-Fried had given millions of dollars to candidates for office in the United States 2022 midterm elections.

Opensecrets.org data revealed that $5,000 was given to a political action committee in support of Iowa Representative Cindy Axne and New Jersey Representative Josh Gottheimer, who are members of the House Financial Services Committee.

Bankman-Fried has increased his media appearances since FTX filed for bankruptcy and has repeatedly apologized for the errors that caused the exchange to fail.

According to a Nov. 16 report, authorities may have been considering extraditing the former CEO to the United States for questioning. However, Bankman-Fried was still in the Bahamas at the time of publication.