Sam Bankman-Fried Casts a Long Shadow on Chicago’s Mayoral Race

(Bloomberg) -- Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is using fallen crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried in an advertising campaign attacking her biggest opponent in this year’s election.

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In the 30-second spot, Lightfoot’s campaign highlights Bankman-Fried’s donations to Representative Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia, casting her rival as someone who maintains close relationships with “crypto crooks.”

A spokesperson for Garcia said the mayor’s messaging represented “more lies and desperate attacks.”

Bankman-Fried is facing multiple criminal charges stemming from the November collapse of the FTX crypto exchange and a slew of related companies. The former FTX chief executive officer has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and is set to face a trial in October in what may be the highest-profile white-collar scandal since Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme blew up.

Before his arrest, Bankman-Fried and several other high-ranking executives at FTX had emerged as significant political contributors to both Democrats and Republicans.

Garcia announced he was joining Chicago’s mayoral race at the end of November, shortly after he was re-elected to congress. The Illinois Democrat is seen as the biggest threat to Lightfoot’s second term. Garcia is known for having forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff in 2015, the first since the city moved to non-partisan elections in 1999. He is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, which has held multiple hearings about cryptocurrency. At one of those hearings in December, which featured testimony from current FTX liquidator John J. Ray III, Chuy said “the crypto industry is in crisis because crypto assets have no inherent value.”

Lightfoot’s own ties to Bankman-Fried and FTX have been highlighted by Kam Buckner, another mayoral candidate. Lightfoot cut the ribbon to debut the headquarters for FTX’s US arm last spring, just months before the company announced it was moving to Miami. She also promoted the crypto exchange’s participation in a basic income program aimed at helping poor families run by a local non-profit called Equity and Transformation.

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