Sam Bankman-Fried’s Lawyers Seek to Regain Ground in FTX Trial
Founder looks to rebound from cross-examination, with closing arguments expected to begin Wednesday
3 min
Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers rested their case Tuesday after seeking to rehabilitate the FTX founder’s credibility from the prosecutors’ two-day grilling.
Bankman-Fried, dressed in a grey suit, floundered through the end of Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon’s cross-examination.
For a second day, Sassoon walked Bankman-Fried through balance sheets, communications and tweets, again highlighting inconsistencies—or what she portrayed as outright lies—between the defendant’s public statements and his private knowledge.
Bankman-Fried repeatedly told jurors he couldn’t recall many of his past statements. He said he couldn’t remember the exact time line of things.
Defence attorney Mark Cohen sought to elicit testimony to explain his client’s evasiveness. He asked about reasons for his foggy memory and his use of a private jet and his contempt for regulation.
“You used the phrase ‘f— regulators,’ ” Cohen said, referring to a series of messages between Bankman-Fried and a Vox reporter. “Was that the full extent of the chain?”
It wasn’t, said Bankman-Fried, adding that he felt that his efforts to work with regulators might have only led to more bad regulation. “I was somewhat frustrated,” he said.
Cohen asked about the huge amount of evidence in the case—suggesting his client couldn’t possibly remember every document—and his many media interviews.
Bankman-Fried told the jury he talked to about 50 reporters during the time between FTX’s collapse and his arrest, typically preparing between 30 seconds and an hour for each interview. When he testified before Congress, others helped him prepare his testimony, he said.
Bankman-Fried’s testimony, which formed the bulk of his defence team’s presentation, is likely crucial to jurors’ determination of whether to find him guilty of fraud and other charges. Closing arguments are scheduled for Wednesday, clearing the way for the jury to likely get the case on Thursday.
About half of the jurors watched Bankman-Fried as he spoke. Some scribbled notes and others gazed at the floor. One man closed his eyes. Damian Williams, the Manhattan U.S. attorney who has given priority to prosecuting cryptocurrency cases, sat in the front row of the courtroom gallery.
Bankman-Fried again answered some of the prosecutor’s questions by quibbling with their premise. When asked about an $8 billion hole in the balance sheet of Alameda Research, FTX’s sister hedge fund, he said that “hole” wasn’t the word he would use. He said he couldn’t speak with exact confidence about whether some FTX customers, outside of its sister hedge fund, had special privileges.
Sassoon asked if it was Bankman-Fried’s practice to maximise making money even with the risk of going bust. “It depends on the context,” he replied. He later added, “With respect to some of them, yes.”
Sassoon concluded her cross-examination by playing a recording of a Nov. 9, 2022, all-hands meeting in which Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research and Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend, spoke with Alameda staffers. Ellison, her voice halting, said she had talked about Alameda’s use of customer funds with Bankman-Fried and two of his top deputies, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang.
“Ms. Ellison identified you, Gary and Nishad as her co-conspirators, correct?” Sassoon asked.
Sassoon showed jurors a document, from Dec. 25, 2022, in which Bankman-Fried appeared to be analysing his own potential legal jeopardy and assessing how the government viewed the alleged conspiracy. While it was public that Ellison and Wang were cooperating with prosecutors, Bankman-Fried wasn’t sure if Singh, a former FTX executive, would be charged.
“They don’t seem to be keeping a seat warm for him as a defendant,” the document said.
“You wrote that, Mr. Bankman-Fried?” asked Sassoon. “I think so,” he said.
Singh, who later pleaded guilty, testified for the government earlier in the trial.
Later, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer referenced a photograph of Bankman-Fried on a private jet, reclining with his eyes closed. The prosecution had showed the jury the photo as an example of excess spending. Cohen asked Bankman-Fried if he remembered the photo.
“A very flattering one,” Bankman-Fried said sarcastically, before agreeing that using a private jet was a valid business expense.
“It was very logistically difficult to travel between the Bahamas and a few places, chiefly Washington, D.C.,” the FTX founder told the jury.
After the defence attorney wrapped up, Sassoon told the judge she had no more questions. Bankman-Fried took a long swig from his water bottle as he stepped down for his final time from the witness stand.
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The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.
4 min
It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.
On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.
The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.
Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.
“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.
“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”
Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
What are the goals for Artemis II?
The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.
The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.
Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.
SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .
How is the mission expected to unfold?
Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.
The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.
After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.
Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.
Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?
Yes.
For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.
Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?
The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.
Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.
Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.
Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.
What will the astronauts do during the flight?
The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.
Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.
On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.
There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.
Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.
The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.
What happens after Artemis II?
Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.
NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.
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