The US Senate just did something it almost never does: agree on something. Every single senator voted to oppose any form of presidential clemency for Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in American history.
The unanimous passage of S.Res. 772 on July 15 came in direct response to Bankman-Fried’s formal pardon request submitted to President Trump in June. In a town where bipartisan consensus is rarer than a profitable meme coin, this vote was remarkable.
What happened and why it matters
The resolution was introduced by an unlikely pairing: Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, and Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming. Lummis, notably, is one of crypto’s most vocal advocates in Congress. The fact that even she co-sponsored this resolution tells you everything about where the political class stands on Bankman-Fried.
The resolution is nonbinding, meaning it carries no legal force. It cannot actually prevent the president from issuing a pardon. Think of it as the Senate’s version of a strongly worded letter, except this one had 100 signatures.
