Fallen crypto king due for House GOP grilling on recordkeeping — if arrest doesn't block testimony

The top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee told "Just the News, No Noise" Monday he will focus his questions to FTX cryptocurrency platform founder Sam Bankman-Fried on the collapsed company's careless recordkeeping when he testifies before Congress — if his arrest Monday in the Bahamas doesn't prevent his testimony. 

The fallen crypto king had agreed prior to his arrest to testify remotely before the committee. 

"My questions to Bankman-Fried," said South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, "are: 'Do you not keep any type records? Why did you choose the Bahamas instead of the U.S.? How do you feel about the investors who have lost billions of dollars? How are you going to pay those?'"

Following FTX's collapse last month, GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam making a sweeping demand for all correspondence related to FTX and and sister firm Alameda Research between their agencies, the Biden administration, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  

You "must conduct a full conflict-of-interest review to ensure that Mr. Bankman-Fried's status as a top donor to the Democratic Party did not insulate him from oversight and accountability," Hawley wrote in the letter.

"To be clear, Mr. Bankman-Fried funded his lavish donations to the Democratic Party through rampant fraud," the letter continued. "The net result was that billions of dollars were stolen from investors and handed over to Democrats and left-wing organizations." 

Norman said he doubts Democrats in Congress will question Bankman-Fried about his financial contributions to Democrat officials and liberal causes. 

"The Democrats that received the money — he wasn't giving the money out of the goodness of his heart," Norman said. 

"I know he was big into philanthropy and giving away money," he continued. "But he's paying Democrats so that he wouldn't have any meaningful oversight into what he was doing and to live the life of luxury that he did at the expense of others. He ought to do time, and I think he probably will before all this is over with."