Wyden team's role in FTX-DPO $500k donation larger than previously disclosed: Oregon DOJ docs

FTX to Democratic Party of Oregon director: "I think the Wyden team might have already reached out."

Convicted felon and founder of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried (left) and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) (right)

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) campaign’s involvement in and knowledge of a $500,000 contribution made in October 2022 in the name of Nishad Singh to the Democratic Party of Oregon was far more extensive than previously reported, according to Oregon Department of Justice records obtained exclusively by Oregon Roundup.

Wyden’s spokesman told The Oregonian last year, “The Wyden campaign played no role in this donation to the (Democratic Party of Oregon) . . . The money was raised for the (Democratic Party of Oregon) by a fundraiser it retained to raise national money.”

The newly released documents show that Wyden’s campaign was involved in originating, facilitating, reporting on and correcting the reporting on, the contribution.

An investigative report dated April 9, 2024, authored by Oregon DOJ Special Agent Keri Jasso, summarizes an interview with Diana Rogalle, who is Wyden’s longtime campaign fundraising consultant, about her role in facilitating the largest contribution ever received by the DPO.

According to the report, Rogalle said she contacted Susan McCue, a longtime Democratic fundraiser who previously worked for then-Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid, to arrange the contribution “because Rogalle knew McCue was working for Senator Wyden’s office and also for the FTX/Sam Bankman-Fried constellation.” Rogalle and McCue have known each other “for quite some time” due to their work in politics, according to the report.

Bankman-Fried, the founder of and former CEO of FTX, is now serving a lengthy federal prison sentence for defrauding FTX investors and customers.

In May 2023, Oregon Roundup first broke the story of Rogalle’s involvement in arranging the contribution and her role in Wyden’s campaign. That Rogalle reportedly told Oregon DOJ that McCue was also close to Wyden’s office has not been previously reported.

McCue told me via email this morning that she has never worked for Wyden. She co-founded Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC dedicated to electing Democrats to the U.S. Senate. Her role as Chief of Staff to Reid would have given her extensive access to and familiarity with Senate Democrats, including Wyden.

Neither Rogalle nor Senator Wyden’s office responded to emailed questions about Rogalle’s apparent belief that McCue worked for Wyden by the rather tight deadline provided. I will update the story with any comment I receive from them.

According to McCue, upon receiving the contribution request from Rogalle, she put Rogalle in touch with Mark Wetjen, FTX’s head federal lobbyist, to complete the transaction, according to the DOJ records. Wetjen, a former Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner, had been hired by FTX to helm the firm’s rapidly expanding Washington, DC, office, much of the focus of which was to ensure cryptocurrency would be regulated by the CFTC, Wetjen’s former employer, instead of the more aggressive Securities and Exchange Commission.

By late September and early October 2022, when Rogalle, McCue and Wetjen were arranging the Oregon contribution, Wyden had already used his considerable clout as Finance Committee Chairman to try to fend off SEC regulation of crypto and discourage a tax provision that would have harmed FTX.

Wetjen then contacted Nishad Singh, then FTX’s chief of engineering, to ask Singh to make the $500,000 donation sought by Rogalle. Singh had often acted as a donor to political candidates and causes deemed worthy by FTX and Bankman-Fried. Singh later pleaded guilty to federal charges including campaign finance fraud for similar schemes involving contributions to federal campaigns.

The Oregon DOJ report of its interview with Singh shows it was unusual for Wetjen to make a fundraising request to Singh. Singh remembered the contribution, nearly two years later, because Wetjen had never before asked him directly for a contribution to an FTX ally. In explanation for the unusual request, Wetjen told Singh, “donating to the DPO would really help FTX as a whole,” according to the report.

FTX was and is in no significant way regulated by the State of Oregon, or any of the state candidates, including now-Governor Tina Kotek, for whom the DPO quickly put the $500,000 contribution to work. It was and is, however, regulated by the federal government, and Wyden had already proven a reliable ally in such matters.

The $500,000 contribution in Singh’s name was part of DPO’s coordinated campaign, which raises funds to help a host of state Democratic candidates. The coordinated campaign was directed in 2022 by Oregon political consultant Aisling Coghlan. Among the coordinated campaign’s “table” of advisors was Wyden’s political director Tim Leahy.

When the DPO was rushing to clarify that the contribution was from Prime Trust LLC prior to its early October reporting deadline, Coghlan emailed Leahy an excerpt of a Politico story from April 2022 about how Protect our Future, a federal super PAC, had misreported $14 million in contributions that had come from Bankman-Fried and Singh. The PAC erroneously reported the contribution’s source as Prime Trust LLC. Those funds were eventually used by Protect our Future in a failed attempt to win the Democratic nomination in Oregon’s new 6th Congressional District for newcomer Carrick Flynn. Coghlan’s note accompanying the Politico story in her October 6 email: “this is the part that was interesting to me.”

Despite the fact that Coghlan and Leahy, at least, were aware that Prime Trust had six months earlier been erroneously described as a donor for a major contribution benefitting a campaign in Oregon, which contribution was actually from Singh and Bankman-Friend, DPO reported the $500,000 donation as coming from Prime Trust two days after Coghlan’s email to Leahy.

[Ed.: I expect to write up soon the major ways the Oregon DOJ documents undermine DOJ’s recently announced decision not to prosecute anyone related to the DPO contribution.]

On October 29, 2022, Brad Martin, DPO’s CEO received a text message from Jenna Narayanan, who identified herself as “with Nishad Singh (and Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX).” Narayan told Martin the contribution had been mis-attributed to Prime Trust, and that Singh was the contributor.

“Can I work with you/your team to get the reporting updated to reflect was [sic] from Nishad instead? I think Wyden team may have already reached out.” (Emphasis added).

As for Wyden’s spokesman’s claim that Rogalle was a fundraiser retained by DPO to raise national funds, the Oregon DOJ documents show that she was to be paid pursuant to a “verbal contract” the total sum of $2,000 “for her role in the Singh donation.” Meanwhile, she has been a regular and consistent consultant working for Wyden for years, including in the 2022 cycle.

It is a violation of federal campaign finance law for a federal officeholder to direct individual contributions in excess of $10,000.00 to a state party. The FEC has not yet ruled on a complaint I filed a year ago alleging Wyden had violated that law. The complaint is based on what was known then - that Rogalle was involved in the transaction, and had copied certain Wyden campaign staff on remails about the contribution. I plan to update the FEC with the new information contained in this article.