According to Mediaite, Avenatti used X on Monday to denounce Bankman-Fried’s recent public plea for clemency, which the FTX founder said he would “absolutely” welcome from President Donald Trump. The clash between two high-profile convicts underscores a broader debate on accountability, redemption, and whether elite white-collar offenders should ever receive special consideration from the White House.
Avenatti, once celebrated by the liberal media as a potential presidential contender, said he repeatedly confronted Bankman-Fried in prison over his refusal “to accept ANY responsibility for what he did.” The ex-attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels claimed Bankman-Fried never conceded that he had cheated his own customers.
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“Sam Bankman-Fried and I were prison bunkmates and I know him well. So I read this with more context than most. Sam and I argued more than once about the same thing: his refusal to accept ANY responsibility for what he did,” Avenatti wrote, insisting that genuine contrition is the minimum standard for mercy. “Not once did he admit he’d done anything wrong — even after I told him repeatedly he could never begin to redeem himself without that acknowledgment. You don’t earn a pardon when you can’t admit, even to yourself, that you did wrong.”
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Avenatti’s broadside followed Bankman-Fried’s interview with Fox Business, where the convicted crypto executive openly courted clemency from a potential second Trump administration. “It would be obviously, you know, ultimately up to the president, not up to me,” Bankman-Fried said, as he seeks relief from a 25-year sentence for looting roughly $8 billion in customer funds from FTX, a conviction secured in 2022.
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Avenatti’s own record is hardly clean: he was convicted that same year of defrauding clients out of millions, ordered to repay $7 million, and handed a 14-year sentence later reduced to about 11 years. “I am deeply remorseful and contrite,” he told the court at the time, adding, “There is no doubt that all of them deserve much better, and I hope that someday they will accept my apologies and find it in their heart to forgive me.”
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He was also convicted in 2022 of embezzling about $300,000 from Daniels, further tarnishing his onetime status as a media darling of the anti-Trump left. Now housed in a halfway house and expected to be released in 2028, Avenatti is casting himself as the repentant felon drawing a sharp moral line against an unrepentant one, a distinction conservatives may see as essential before any president even contemplates the extraordinary remedy of a pardon.
