"'SBF,' as he is widely known, visited the White House, attended a congressional retreat, and held countless meetings with lawmakers and top regulators."

"He got chummy with Bill Clinton after paying the former president to speak at a conference....  And he earned praise during Senate testimony from Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., for a 'much more glorious afro than I once had.' In just two years since Bankman-Fried's first political donation, his money hired dozens of top-flight lobbyists and political operatives, made major investments in newsrooms like ProPublica and Semafor, and made him the second-biggest Democratic donor of the 2022 midterms, behind only the 92-year-old financier George Soros. He said $1 billion would be a 'soft ceiling' for his spending in 2024.... His downfall will leave some Democratic groups with budget holes to fill.... 'A lot of people in D.C. thought this was the next big thing. Everybody was trying to get in,' said one source close to the Bankman-Frieds’ political operation who requested anonymity to speak candidly. 'This went from the hottest thing to the most toxic thing. But that’s how D.C. works.'"

From "Vegan canapes and fat donations: How Sam Bankman-Fried won Washington before he lost everything/The 30-year-old mega-donor was building a massive, multimillion-dollar Washington operation. Then the gravy train crashed" (NBC News).