anotherAKGorman
Molly WhiteAs an active federal contractor, Coinbase is prohibited from making political contributions, including to super PACs. This makes $50 million that they have contributed in violation of pay-to-play laws for contractors.
See my reporting on their previous violation, which is being reviewed by the FEC: https://www.citationneeded.news/coinbase-campaign-finance-violation/
Coinbase appears to have violated campaign finance laws with a $25 million super PAC donation
Actively involved in contract negotiations with a federal government agency, Coinbase was likely prohibited from making its $25 million contribution to the Fairshake cryptocurrency-focused super PAC in May 2024.
The $50 million is just their illegal contributions, by the way. Coinbase has spent around $75 million on this election cycle in total.
azninsect@molly0xfff insane the FTC havent been able to squash these idiots for this yet
Blort™ 🐀Ⓥ🥋☣️
SouprMatt@molly0xfff Considering how lax federal election funding laws are, it takes some seriously bad behavior to actually break those laws.
Andreas K@mls14 @molly0xfff Don't worry, the Feds are not enforcing these lax laws in the election period (funny how it's almost always some election period in the USA), so they don't interfere with the election (well the criminals breaking the law are allowed to interfere with the election, fancy logic?), only after the election ⇾ so the winner decides if something is even worthy an investigation.
If that's not a pro-corruption environment, how would you design it to be more pro-corruption?
KraigThe pervasive and obvious corruption is as bad — maybe worse? — than any mafia.
This last 10 years (ie Trumpification of the GOP) have really exposed how brittle, broken, and downright incompetent the American govt and institutions really are.
How ill-equipped and ill-designed those institutions — and people — are to deal with the power of wealth (eg musk, Murdoch, etc), casual lawlessness, and willful malfeasance (eg Fox News, Jan 6, Supreme Court, etc).
webstech@molly0xfff This sounds a bit like what the gun lobby did to change the laws.
GadgetGav@molly0xfff Between them and Musk it’s like there’s no such thing as illegal money in elections any more. ☹️
@molly0xfff Is it known which candidate Fairshake is promoting as being "more crypto friendly"? I'm guessing it's Trump, but I'd be curious to know.
@Blort they’ve been focused on congressional candidates
Esther #antifa@molly0xfff I think there is a missing hashtag: #corruption
Drew@molly0xfff not to mention that we are definitely not getting the results in 6 days
Ratboy (reformed dino pirate)@molly0xfff laws are only for the poors and powerless
johnteachestechthis is why we can't have nice things.
Frances Nation@molly0xfff so how is Musk getting away with it? Make it make sense?!?!
@fsnatio My understanding is that there is a loophole with respect to individual contributions by people affiliated with or employed by companies that hold government contracts.
Joe Heafner@molly0xfff I don’t understand what there is to “review.” Either they broke the law or they didn’t.
@heafnerj more details about the process here: https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/enforcement/complaints-process/how-to-file-complaint-with-fec/
How to file a complaint with the FEC - FEC.gov
Learn how to file a complaint regarding a potential campaign finance law violation with the Federal Election Commission and about how complaints are processed and resolved, including initial stages, investigations, conciliation, civil penalties, and time frames
Julie Hughes@molly0xfff One more example of Merrick Garland being asleep at the wheel...
Ariaflame@juliehuz @molly0xfff TV and movies certainly give people a very inaccurate picture of how fast the justice system works.
@ariaflame @molly0xfff It's been public info since end of June FEC reporting period, and Coinbase and Fairplay have made multiple statements about the intent behind the contributions. It doesn't take THAT long to file a brief
PedestrianError 
@juliehuz @molly0xfff One of the ways I have some hope for a Harris administration being better than the Biden one is that she does know what an attorney general is supposed to do and what type of personality and energy level one might need to succeed in the position.
John Scigulinsky@molly0xfff i like how they announced their crime with pride.
Kevin RussellBreak then up. No fine is large enough for crypto.
Bruce Heerssen 
@molly0xfff
A bit off topic, but I had a scammer call me the other day and the minute he said bitcoin something coinbase, I let him know that I was not going to deal with him for any reason whatsoever. Then I hung up. Not two seconds later, the same scammer called me from a different number and I wanted to crawl through the phone and beat him over the head.
Crypto is a scam.
jeffeb3@molly0xfff Most federal contractors get around that by begging their employees to donate to a PAC.
aburka 🫣@molly0xfff I hate to ask but what is Coinbase being federally contracted to do
@aburka custody and asset management services for the US Marshals’ stash of crypto
@molly0xfff ok that's not as bad as I was thinking
Mike Johnston@molly0xfff did they give it to them in BTC to try and get around those rules? If it even works that way... Whole thing stinks though
@ThaMunsta the original $25M contribution was made in bitcoin, but the FEC is clear that contributions encompass “anything of value”. the most recent one hasn’t been reported yet so TBD there.
i would like to see Coinbase arguing that BTC has no value to try to get around the restriction though, lol
Jonathan RIf only we had a functional Federal Election Commission.
https://campaignlegal.org/update/why-fec-ineffective