Sam Bankman-Fried Submits Formal Pardon Request to Trump Justice Department
A clemency petition from a high-profile federal inmate tests the administration's stated law-and-order posture and raises questions about the pardon process's transparency under existing DOJ...
Incarcerated FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally submitted a pardon request to President Donald J. Trump, according to a report citing the U.S. Department of Justice clemency process, as reported by the Daily Caller on or before June 8, 2026. Bankman-Fried, 32, is currently serving a 25-year federal prison sentence imposed in March 2024 by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Southern District of New York following his conviction on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange (U.S. v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cr-00673, S.D.N.Y.).
The formal pardon petition would be processed through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, a component of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under 28 C.F.R. § 1.1–1.10, federal pardon regulations require that a petitioner ordinarily wait five years after release from confinement before applying, though the President retains constitutional authority under Article II, Section 2 to grant clemency at any time regardless of DOJ processing guidelines. Whether Bankman-Fried's petition was submitted directly to the White House or routed through the Office of the Pardon Attorney is not confirmed in available public records as of June 8, 2026.
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Bankman-Fried was a prominent political donor prior to his arrest. Federal Election Commission records show he contributed approximately $5.2 million to Democratic Party-aligned candidates and committees during the 2021–2022 election cycle and disclosed donations to Republican-affiliated entities as well, though the full scope of his giving across both parties remains subject to ongoing FEC review. His former colleagues at FTX and Alameda Research also made significant contributions to candidates of both parties during that cycle, according to FEC filings.
The Trump administration has not issued a public statement confirming or denying receipt of the petition as of the publication of this article. The White House Office of Communications did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. Under 28 C.F.R. § 1.6, the Office of the Pardon Attorney is required to investigate each petition and provide a recommendation to the Deputy Attorney General, who then advises the President. No timeline is mandated by regulation for that review.
What remains unknown is whether the Trump White House has accepted the petition for active consideration, which Office of the Pardon Attorney official has been assigned to review it, and whether any communications between Bankman-Fried's legal representatives and administration officials have occurred outside the formal DOJ process. The document that would answer those questions is a White House Counsel or DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney acknowledgment letter, which is not a public record under current federal disclosure rules absent a court proceeding or congressional subpoena.