The bipartisan letter writers also want to know when the agency found out about the wrongdoing at the crypto exchange.
United States Senators Elizabeth Warren and Charles Grassley have sent a letter to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Rostin Behnam asking for an accounting of Behnam’s contacts with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried before the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse. The writers say they want to “renew requests” for that information and cite a letter addressed to Behnam and others by Sen. Josh Hawley.
Warren and Grassley, who represent opposite ends of the U.S. political spectrum, reminded Behnam that he told a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing in December that “My team and I met with Mr. Bankman-Fried and his team [...] over the past 14 months, we met 10 times in the CFTC office at their request.”
Behnam, who was the sole witness speaking at the hearing, used the hearing as a platform to appeal for more authority, saying, “Without new authority for the CFTC, there will remain gaps in a federal regulatory framework, even if other regulators act within their existing authority.” Warren and Grassley wrote in a letter dated April 12:
