Leftist ethics group refuses to return $2.5 million ‘donation’ from FTX founder—says they spent it

According to Insider, a spokesperson for the Campaign Legal Center, Brendan Quinn, said his company "cannot return or give away Bankman-Fried's money because the money is already spent."

Sam Bankman-Fried, the second biggest Democrat donor right after George Soros, made donations to the Dems that totaled $39.8 million in the 2021-22 cycle.

Bankman-Fried has given $2.5 million to the Campaign Legal Center since 2021, with $1.06 going to the company's advocacy branch and another $1.5 million split between the charitable and advocacy arms of the company.

Insider reports that, according to Campaign Legal Center's latest tax filing with the IRS, they concluded the last year with net assets upward of $26.8 million with $12.5 million available in cash.

The Campaign Legal Center said to the Daily News that a politician can always return a contribution in the amount received. Their comment came after Carl Paladino, who was running for a Congressional seat in western New York, said that Hitler was "the kind of leader we need today." Paladino had made financial contributions to a variety of candidates, including Representative Nicole Malliotakis.

Malliotakis said she could not return the money as it was already spent.

Speaking for the Campaign Legal Center, Quinn said it was different for their group as his company isn't a political candidate and returning the money was "not something we're considering or need to consider at this time."

Reports have varied, but anywhere between $2 billion to $8 billion of FTX customer funds inexplicably vanished in early November. At the same time, disgraced former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried had a personal net worth of around $16 billion but that reportedly diminished by 94 percent when he resigned from his position on November 11.

Bankman-Fried is being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal authorities have also been investigating FTX for malfeasance.