NH Democratic Party Chair Buckley Appears To Admit He's Keeping SBF Campaign Loot

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

Infamous scam artist Sam Bankman-Fried may have been sentenced to 25 years in a California prison last week, but thousands of stolen dollars he donated to New Hampshire Democrats are still sitting in their campaign accounts.

And in a social media post Monday, state Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley appeared to say that’s exactly where that campaign cash will remain — despite pleas from the federal government that the victims’ cash be returned.

In December 2022, news broke that SBF, as Bankman-Fried is known, and the entities he controlled donated some $40 million to Democratic committees during the midterm cycle. Granite State Democrats were among Bankman-Fried’s favorites, receiving tens of thousands of dollars of donations from his stolen funds.

According to data from the Federal Election Commission, Sen. Maggie Hassan was tied for sixth on the list of campaign contribution recipients from convicted crypto scammer and his FTX companies. Buckley and the state party were number eight.

After SBF’s arrest, FTX’s new management asked candidates who’d received the ill-gotten gains to return them to help make SBF’s victims whole. Hassan publicly pledged to do just that. However, she has declined to release any records documenting that she’s returned the money, and she refuses to answer questions about the status of those donations.

According to media reports, Hassan has returned about one-fifth of the Bankman-Fried cash she received, but she’s still holding on to nearly $21,000. Asked to confirm those numbers, Hassan declined to respond.

The same with Buckley, who has repeatedly refused to commit to returning the money. In January 2023, the party’s spokesperson at the time pointedly told the Union Leader the party would “await further developments and instructions from the proper authorities relating to the possible return of the funds,” rather than say the party would give up the cash.

The issue flared up on social media Monday when Buckley took to X to accuse Republican Kelly Ayotte of taking “hundreds of thousands of sketchy out of state cash.”

The Rockingham County GOP responded. “Umm, Ray, what about the SBF ‘donations’ to N.H. Dems and Maggie Hassan? Remember the tale of the pot and the kettle. You know who you are in that calculation.”

Buckley fired back with a revealing retort:

“22 years ago… NHGOP took $30,000 of stolen Indian tribal funds from convicted felon Abramoff to fund the illegal phone jamming to steal the election which sent those involved to federal prison. Yet not one dime returned to tribe. Stop being a pathetic hypocrite.”

Republicans say it’s an admission that Buckley has no plans to return the SBF money.

“This was an easy opportunity to say, ‘We’re not keeping this apparently stolen money,’ or ‘We are returning the stolen money,'” said Rockingham County GOP chair Jason Grosky. “Instead, he chose to deflect more than 20 years to justify the poor decision he and the Democratic Party are making to prioritize cash over principles.”

And a Concord lobbyist who works with both political parties told NHJournal, “Yep, that money ain’t going back.”

NHJournal reached out to Buckley about his social media post and asked about the status of the SBF cash. Both he and the state party spokesperson declined to respond.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.