Almost 4,000 people have used a CryptoLaw petition app to demand that Congress investigate United States Securities and Exchange Commission head Gary Gensler’s “actions in the FTX fraud,” the organization claimed in a tweet on the morning of Nov. 14.
The CryptoLaw website is run by lawyer John Deaton, who is representing Ripple against the SEC and contributes frequently to the public discourse on the case. The petition reads, in part:
“Evidence has emerged that proves that Gensler met with […] [FTX CEO] Sam Bankman-Fried, before the $14 billion collapse of FTX. Members of Congress have already been informed that Gensler was working with Bankman-Fried to give FTX a regulatory free pass while a massive fraud was going on right under the SEC’s nose. […] It’s time for a full Congressional investigation of Gensler’s role in one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”
Gensler’s alleged links with bankrupt FTX and Bankman-Fried, also known as “SBF,” began to attract attention practically as soon as the disgraced exchange’s troubles became public. Republican Representative Tom Emmer, who has a long record as a crypto supporter, tweeted on Nov. 10 that “reports to my office allege he [Gensler] was helping SBF and FTX work on legal loopholes to obtain regulatory monopoly.”
Memo on Samuel Bankman Fried’s 3/23/22 meeting with SEC Chairman Gensler’s staff. Remember these names. pic.twitter.com/CmsIqhtQQX
— FoiaFan (@15poundstogo) November 14, 2022
Emmer did not elaborate on the source or nature of the reports he referred to, but media reports point to a 45-minute Zoom meeting on March 23 between senior counsel Amanda Fischer and senior adviser Corey Frayer from the SEC and representatives of the IEX stock exchange and FTX, including SBF himself. FTX later invested in the IEX exchange.