The expected testimony of cryptocurrency pariah Sam Bankman-Fried before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday is shaping up as a hugely awkward moment for committee Democrats whose campaigns he bankrolled.
Chairwoman Maxine Waters, California Democrat, said she wants to investigate the collapse of FTX, the now defunct multibillion-dollar crypto exchange founded by Mr. Bankman-Fried that critics have compared to a Ponzi scheme. But she said she doesn’t want “to get into” his political donations, of which $300,351 went to nine members of the committee, seven of them Democrats.
Ms. Waters herself has been cozy with the disgraced entrepreneur, posing for a photo with him in April that was apparently taken at a Bahamas conference hosted by FTX.