A consultant for Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) reportedly facilitated a $500,000 donation to the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) from FTX — the cryptocurrency company whose CEO has been hit with a myriad of charges, including campaign-finance violations.
In an email obtained by the Oregon Roundup, Susan McCue, a D.C.-based consultant that counted FTX as a client, connects an FTX executive with Diana Rogalle, a consultant who has done extensive fundraising work for Wyden:
Mark & Diana,
Connecting up two longtime friends here! I’ve spoken with each of you about the other. Mark is all things FTX; Diana is all things Ron Wyden. She and I just had a good convo and she’s following up directly w principles, Mark, Diana can provide the details for the 500k to OR coordinated campaign. Thanks!
Susan
“Mark” refers to Mark Wetjen, who in the fall of 2022 was the head of policy and regulatory strategy for FTX.
Rogalle’s political consulting group, the Ashmead Group, has been retained by Wyden’s campaign for fundraising purposes on many occasions.
Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, previously received a campaign donation in the amount of $2,900 from FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried. While other politicians have returned or donated campaign donations from Bankman-Fried, Wyden had declined to do the same as of March 31.
The involvement of a longtime Wyden fundraiser — and Wyden’s history accepting donations from Bankman-Fried — suggests that the top Senate Democrat was influential in securing the $500,000 donation, the largest single contribution ever made to the Democratic Party of Oregon,
FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11 of last year and later asked candidates who received donations “by or at the direction of” Bankman-Fried to return them as the company worked to pay back its creditors. In addition to a campaign-finance charge, Bankman-Fried was also indicted on securities fraud and money laundering.
The $500,000 donation was intended to aid the party in the hotly contested Oregon governor race, in which Democratic candidate Tina Kotek ultimately prevailed over her Republican opponent.
The Oregon Roundup obtained the email disclosing Wyden’s role in the donation through a public records request from the Oregon Office of Administrative Hearings.
Bankman-Fried and its then-chief engineer Nishad Singh are accused of unlawfully funneling funds from FTX to federal and state campaigns throughout the country, according to the DOJ. Singh was the FTX executive who wired the $500,000 donation to the DPO, which initially misreported its source.
Wyden has received money from the Bankman-Fried family for more than a decade. Wyden for Senate received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, in April 2022, according to the report. Sam Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, contributed $2,500 in 2010 — his largest contribution to a federal candidate or committee to date.
Democrats’s Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have all said they plan to return or donate contributions they received from Bankman-Fried and FTX’s former head engineer Nishad Singh.