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Balint’s crypto campaign donor collapses. Questions about her future, and the world’s

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By Guy Page

The sudden collapse of a cryptocurrency company raises three big questions for campaign contribution recipient Becca Balint, Vermont’s Congress-person elect. 

Just weeks ago, crypto currency firm FTX was riding high. Valued at $32 billion in January, FTX was one of the biggest boys on the blockchain. Like many leaders in an unregulated market, FTX was spending and lobbying hard for the federal government to impose regulations advantageous to them and perilous to the less-established and influential. 

Last week, FTX collapsed. Over-leveraged with debt, big investors (including some major crypto competitors unhappy with the self-serving push for regulation) pulled out. Which prompted smaller investors to do likewise. Which forced founder Sam Bankman-Fried to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy/reorganization. 

Embarrassing but unimportant was the loss of its professional sports naming rights. The Miami Heat will find another corporate sponsor for its basketball arena. Major League Baseball announced the FTX logo will be removed from umpires’ uniform sleeves. Of greater importance is the loyalty of elected Democrats. Many elected to national office with money from FTX are now asking how much loyalty they still owe megadonors Bankman-Fried and senior executives. 

For example, Vermont Congress-person elect Becca Balint. 

In July, Chief Engineer Nishad Singh gave $1.1 million to help push Sen. Becca Balint past Molly Gray in the August 9 Democratic primary for Congress. Along with the dropout and endorsement of onetime challenger Sen. Kesha Ram and the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the flurry of mailings and advertising made possible by Singh pushed Balint past Lt. Gov. Molly Gray. 

Now, the cratering of FTX raises three big questions for Becca Balint. The first question matters most to Balint and Vermont Democrats. But it is not hyperbole to say the second and third questions touch on issues of global, transformative import.

Question #1: In two years, will other big donors step up to support Balint’s re-election? Conventional wisdom suggests she need not worry. As an incumbent in deep blue Vermont, she probably won’t face a party-backed primary opponent. If the Republicans find a worthy challenger capable of raising the volunteer and financial support needed to push her hard in the 2024 general election, he or she hasn’t appeared yet. 

That’s the easy question. Answers to the next two are murkier and far, far more important. 

Question #2: with FTX crippled, will Balint still support the push by the Biden administration and Sen. Elizabeth Warren for cryptocurrency regulation? 

As VDC reported in August, “President Biden has teed up digital ‘crypto’ currency regulation for the next Congress. If Vermonters want to know how Rep. Becca Balint (should she be elected) will vote, the first place to look should be the regulation-friendly policy initiatives of her biggest financial supporter, FTX.”

An enduring appeal of cryptocurrency is its non-regulation. Government can’t declare an owner a Bad Actor and freeze an account, as it can and does with traditional currency holders. If Biden and Warren get their way, that would change – perhaps radically, in the opposite direction, crypto freedom advocates like Steve Bannon say. 

At President Biden’s request, the Dept. of Treasury in September made four recommendations: 

  1. “Advance work on a possible U.S. CBDC [Central Bank for Digital Currency]” 
  2. “Encourage use of instant payment systems to support a more competitive, efficient, and inclusive U.S. payment landscape”
  3. “Establish a federal framework for payments regulation to protect users and the financial system”
  4. “Prioritize efforts to improve cross-border payments, both to enhance payment system efficiency and protect national security.”

As outlined by Pres. Biden in a March 9 executive order, these Treasury recommendations will form the basis of proposed legislation for the 2023 Congress. In which Balint, of course, will have a vote. 

Early cryptocurrency ‘bitcoin’ adopters included Libertarians and anarchists who envisioned a new form of currency untouched and untouchable by the soiling hands of Big Government. 

The free-market philosophy behind ‘bitcoin’ is much easier to explain than how it works. People with the tools and know-how may issue their own digital currency, the value of which is (somehow) established by an incredibly esoteric and energy-intensive ‘mining’ process employing blockchain software. At present the electricity consumed to operate and cool specialized ‘mining’ hardware is equivalent to the electricity consumption of the nation of Switzerland. 

The People’s Republic of China has banned the use of cryptocurrency. President Biden apparently would prefer to regulate it.

Question #3: Will Becca Balint insist on investigation of whether laboratory failure caused the Covid-19 pandemic, and take steps to ensure laboratory failures don’t result in a future pandemic? 

This is a real question because the founders of FTX care about more than crypto regulation. They also care about preventing laboratory errors leading to the next pandemic. Coinciding with the big FTX contribution, Becca Balint discovered that she, too, cared. As reported by VDC in August:

The Protecting Our Futures PAC – ostensibly to provide oversight of lab work to prevent a future pandemic – is funded by Sam Bankman-Fried, an FTX founder and MIT classmate of Singh. Not only did Bankman-Fried’s PAC endorse Balint, Bankman-Fried and his brother Gabe donated $2900 to the Balint campaign, the maximum amount, VTDigger reports. 

Becca Balint. In addition to seeking the POF PAC endorsement and accepting the two brothers’ money, the campaign also published on its own website almost verbatim the PAC’s language on pandemic protection – the stated purpose of the PAC.

POF PAC website: “We must establish independent oversight of dual-use research including enforcement mechanisms to ensure safety and security.”

Balint website: “Establish independent oversight of labs conducting dual-use research of concern.”

Time will tell if candidate and laboratory quality assurance control reformer Becca Balint maintains her newfound commitment as a sitting member of Congress.

Categories: National News

28 replies »

  1. Say it ain’t so.
    You mean that Rebecca did something unethical?
    Thought that was reserved for cisgender white males according to the current tripe handed out by the progressives aligned with her. You gotta love Rebecca saying she did know the source of her single largest donor (3/4 of her election treasury)in her campaign who happened to have an address in some Caribbean island.
    Not being an expert, I sense some form of malfeasance here. I know Molly Gray did during the election and she was shuttered very quickly as being anti gay. Rebecca’s cry of not knowing does not quite cut it here.
    If this does not bear some further looking into by some competent legal authority ( if we still have one of those around) I am not sure what does constitute malfeasance, unethical or illegal behavior.
    The good people of Vermont have to stop drinking the Kool Aid and pay attention. There were enough warning signs provided during the campaign which were unfortunately drowned out by a press not doing their job and being swallowed by her party line.
    Rebecca is now in an untouchable position and we will be seeing her again and again in upcoming elections ( can’t wait for Bernie to retire and have her step into that void) .
    More to come I can only hope.

  2. There should be no other news story at present. Establishment “Congressfolx” sent tens of billions to Ukraine. Ukraine invested in FTX. FTX gave untold millions to Democratic candidates, who outspent Republican candidates by tens of millions in many important elections. FTX was also cooking the books to the tune of nine billion dollars, and it wasn’t a secret that this appeared to be the case. The Democrats knowingly accepted stolen & laundered money. People’s entire crypto holdings disappeared overnight, including literally being stolen by an apparent last minute inside hack job. Balint was a direct beneficiary of this criminal enterprise, who chose not to say no.

    Add to this the grass-roots encouraged mail-in fraud, selective ballot harvesting, voting machine chicanery and more, and basically you have yet another domestic color revolution as bragged about by the likes of Norm Eisen in Time Magazine post 2020 victory.

    • Yes indeed. There are some big questions here. The issue of whether the payments to Ukraine with US taxpayers money ended up being laundered by FTX and then contributed to the Democrats is a big one; besides being blatantly illegal it’s absolutely galling that unwilling US citizens would have thus funded the campaign of Democrats, Balint included.

      And of course the misuse of FTX investors funds to fund a whole host of stuff including contributions to the Democrats, second only to Soros.

      Now the Democrats spent years howling about, investigating and trying to impeach Trump for baseless claims that he colluded with the Russians to get elected. We now have a evidence that the Democrats were funded to a large degree through essentially illegal donations by FTX. Where are the howls of outrage? The calls for blood? The demands for those such as Balint who profited by the illegal contributions to step down?

      Crickets………..

    • Not as surprised as us sane Republicans are that you truly believe and refuse to accept your boy could lose entirely on his own merits.

  4. If, in fact their is a circle game going where Biden sends US aid gleaned from taxation theft from Vermonters and the country et al, and sends it to Ukraine where it is invested into FTX, who then makes donations to democrats, is that not fraud? If this is in fact what has happened, money laundering on the back of Vermonters and other Americans, then fraud vitiates her election by means of it. People, we are the investigators, we are the truth seekers, we are the answer and we are the ones wherein power resides. There is a significant lawsuit headed to the Supreme Court that challenges the legislative right to author sovereign immunity, since this is not a constitutional right, and at all times the public servant is to be answerable to the people.

  5. And Peter Welch am sure enjoyed a hefty take in it all. Any candidate who was aided by criminal contributions must be denied their office.
    Sweet.

  6. 3a: FTX is (was) the major funder of the “Together” clinical trials of covid treatments, which seem primarily designed to show that cheap established off-label prevention and early treatments don’t work (in favor of new expensive drug cocktails).

  7. I will add question # 4- Since the campaign contributions were issued from a source conducting in an illegal activity, should all contributions be returned?

  8. Guy,
    Dig a little deeper. Balint went to an LGBQLMNOP… meeting at the whitehouse in June, then just a couple weeks later was gifted a million dollar ad campaign from Singh an FTX employee. The largest donor to the Biden campaign in 2020 was FTX at 39 million dollars. Biden opened his campaign on April 25th of 2019, 13 days later Bankman-Friedman launched FTX. You think there might be a connection there?

    I also wonder if they had money involved in the “most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of politics”.

    The FTX company also used various other companies through the Almeda corporation to funnel money into other PAC’s and direct to candidates throughout the nation including Welch who voted to send money to Ukraine (apparently to line his pockets). This means that they directly and indirectly funded crypto pro candidates and the only winner in the state of Vermont was Crypto.

    They also had their hands in Covid being the sponsor of the largest trial of Ivermectin called the together trial (https://www.togethertrial.com/). Here read what the cato institute had to say about that “trial”: https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2022/ivermectin-together-trial. Think that is a coincidence? I think not. I’m sure that more has come out about this today but I haven’t seen it yet.

    The history of Sam Bankman-Fried (you couldn’t make that name up – another coincidence) is interesting too especially surrounding how he became rich to begin with. Hint it involves the Clintons. There are some interesting ties with MIT and the head of the Almeda corporation.

    So Corrupt. Used our own money against us. This should not stand. It’s a blatent fraudulent conspiracy and is NOT theory. Those who took money from this company advertently or inadvertently, should be removed from office and new elections held. This should not be a question in anyones mind.

  10. money returned to “who” ! ?!? !

    Such a simple fraud – it was hard to detect, but maybe easy to question

    • It appears investors were defrauded due to the 9 Billion dollar over stated value of the currency. So, contributions to candidates should be returned and given back to the investors who have lost their money. Even Mitch McConnel got 2.5 million to defeat America First candidates endorsed by Trump. There are snakes and back stabbers in both parties and McConnel is the number one creep in the republican party. He should have to return the 2.5 million and so should Balint and anyone else playing this dirty game of hide the money.

      • And leave them in office? NOPE.

        They stole our tax money and gave it to another country to launder it back to themselves. It’s FRAUD and they need Jailtime.

      • Brian, As you read what I said about McConnell, does that sound like I want him to remain in the senate, hell no. That also goes for all these money games that are so well devised that normal people can’t understand or keep up with the scam being played in the open. The people don’t elect anyone any more, the pacs, the billionaires and the media choose who will win and who will lose. It’s disgusting and needs to be fixed.

  11. Sounds as if we have some politicians who don’t know the difference between a dollar and vapor. And Vermonters voted for them!

    • The dollar is on track to become vapor, as our elected clique continue to pull trillions more out of somewhere close to nowhere.
      To throw down any number of rat holes.
      Many of which lead to cronies and donors to the regime and its party.

  14. Why would this be newsworthy? It appears to be standard procedure now in Vermont politics. leahy did it, welch does it and ms. heir apparent balint is just continuing the ‘good old boy’ tradition in DC. It’s newsworthy because we voters accepted it, turned a blind eye to it mostly- and Donald Trump put this corruption and cronyism front and center, naming it and the people involved ‘the swamp’.
    balint won’t give back a cent, the FEC will rubber-stamp the donation as legit and she will be coronated in January. All the while, focus will be on the guy that brought the corruption, cronyism and grifting into the limelight. Talk about shooting the messenger…

  16. Informative and incisive article. Thank you!

    Seven Days reports a big DAMAGE CONTROL story tonight that Becca is giving the $2,900 that B-F gave her, to charity. Becca would have us believe that she knows next to nothing about why B-F gave her the money (and thereby, why his pal Singh laundered almost $1M into her campaign through a national PAC.). Says she is very concerned and unhappy about the whole nasty matter. Invites us to sympathize with her for having a nasty crypto baron foist unwanted money upon her campaign.

    Oh, and of course, says she favors SEC regulation of crypto. Never said anything like this in her campaign response to these donations back in the summer. (Now, she COULDN’T have known that reportedly B-F has not been interested in legislation that would give SEC a role in regulating….could she? I mean, she just happened to say the SEC would be her choice for regulatory oversight, right? So to be sure and show the she is not in line with B-F’s preferences? I mean, she really doesn’t know much about all of this, right??)

    It is all – all of the talking points, rationalizations, feigned uncertainty and lack of clarity / knowledge, and even slipping in that comment about the SEC – all so well-crafted.

    So what’s the real story?

    1) BECCA KNOWS A LOT. She and her troops must have known about every nook and cranny of this stuff for a while now. FTX has been extensively covered in national media over the past three to four years. B-F has been on the covers of Forbes, Time, etc. Miami’s arena is named FTX. Matt Damon did a Super Bowl commercial about FTX last year.

    2) READ LAST SUMMER’S PAPERS TO SEE HOW BECCA PLAYED DODGE BALL OVER THIS ISSUE. Her campaign barely responded to this issue when it first came up last summer, and in fact when Molly Gray raised concerns, responded with indignation, that it was all “legal”, etc. The Vermont media reported about them extensively, but the reporting was a one-off and then really didn’t go anywhere. Emerson Lynn of the Saint Albans Messenger wrote an editorial raising serious concerns about this. Others too.

    3) NOW THAT FTX IS IN RUINS, A POLITICAL CALCULATION HAS BEEN MADE – Becca’s purported victimization, befuddlement and cluelessness is not a good look. But who will care all that much? The People’s Republic is thrilled at her unprecedented triumph! It’s much better (especially right now) to get this quickly out of her hair….for her to briefly pose as befuddled, maybe even slightly inept, and as well, full of consternation as a victim of a crypto donation-foister, than to knowingly admit that she (likely) knowingly looked the other way. and made good use of the monies (see # 4 below). Yes, probably a good political calculation.

    4) VERMONTERS WERE SWAMPED LAST SUMMER WITH BALINT MAILINGS AND TV ADS – DID THE $1M HELP PAY FOR THEM? The Balint Campaign showered Vermont mailboxes last summer with tons of slick, glossy postcards and brochures. And you could not – for many weeks – go anywhere on social media without ads with Becca sitting at her kitchen table talking about removing the bushes from the front of her school, or showing a photo of Justice Clarence Thomas while intoning the “threat to democracy”. That was a LOT of Costly advertising and PR. So, let’s know….did the $1M help pay for it? Where is the $1M from LGBQT Action / Singh? Will it be given to charity, or given back?

    5) From whom is DEMOCRACY IS UNDER THREAT?

  17. Thanks for covering this story. The old saying remains true, “If you don’t inspect it, you don’t respect it.”

  18. Crypto currency seems simply a way to undermine the economy of established nations. I’ve never used it and it seems a way for people with ordinary incomes to lose everything.

  19. Oh what tangled webs they weave when their practice is to deceive. When is the next bake sale to support Ukraine? Are the gofundme pages still up? The WEF removed all mention of partnership with FTX. Revenge of the nerds indeed!

  20. It needs to be remembered that the $1.1 million to Rebecca Bailint was an award, not a campaign contribution. Bought Becca did not need money to win the election, no she was paid for her work in cementing the larger agenda of enslavement, which is still legal in Vermont, despite the new Article 1 undermined because the term “person” is an legal construct under State jurisdiction, and the new Article 22 subsumes freedom, “personal reproductive freedom” to “State Interests”.

    This thus brings us to more enslavement such as the “Plandemic Preparedness” to which now, the Prop 5/Article 22 Trojan Horse has been passed by those “persons” voting; finds “compelling State interests”, language Balint helped create, mean that it does matter if you have been sterilized by the Department of Defense mRNA vaccines, that Congress is exempt from taking…

    FTX was big into “Pandemic Preparedness” as one of the adjuncts of the money laundering operation that reports that the Ukrainian nazi’s and they are Nazis, bought FTX shares with Tax payer funds, to launder that money back into Democrat Party coffers, so that Becca can vote for more money for more war and slaughter that was started by the Neocons in charge of Obama back in 2014.

    Basically Becca is just part of an agenda which is enslavement, with a progressive face that funds war, medical fascism and racism. (Yes the present Rockefeller medical monopoly is racist against alternative medicine: All subservient to the medical boards that are run by big pharma, department of defense, and Wall Street)

    FTX is not some “rogue” phenomena but a carefully orchestrated set up just like the plandemic.