SBF Trial, From the Courthouse: SBF's Challenging Cross-Examination

Transcript

Hey everyone, I am at the SBF trial and um today was the day that they finished the direct examination of Sam Bankman-Fried and that the cross-examination began and I did make it into the courtroom today. I had to get here at a super crazy hour. Um again, not allowed to reveal due to a code amongst the journalists. Um today is interesting, there is like a number of um kind of like non-reporters that ended up in the courtroom as well. Uh people that came. But anyway, you guys, so he finished his direct testimony. As you can imagine, he um refused he or he like had his own version of a number of the key points, like different conversations with people. I'm going to like skip over that

for now and just tell you what happened in the cross. You can get more of like his version of the story in the podcast that we'll we'll reveal later tonight. And the reason I'm going to do that is because again, we have a short lunch break, so I have to eat with my lunch break, but also this cross-examination was intense. Um first of all, I just remember like even with her very first question, Danielle Sassoon, the assistant US attorney um she just started with her voice like loud and clear. And she just sounded super confident and she went through like, you know, you were the owner of Alameda and FTX and, you know, Sam uh for many of these questions in the beginning was like, "Yep, yep, yep." He just kept saying yep, yep and um she said or or sorry, not

Okay, not like literally every single one because um she was asking him like, "Were you involved in trading?" And he kind of was like being a bit cagey. Um and I think he had claimed, I guess, in past interviews that he was walled off and stuff like that. And um she also talked about how he had deleted a number of uh the different chats or set them to auto-delete and was saying like, "You you made certain statements um or or like she was saying um you uh oh yeah, she she brought up different media interviews that had he had done during his like media tour after the collapse but before his arrest.

And she said, "You know, you said this at that point, you said that at that point." And um honestly, during this time, like the tension for me, at least, was building so much that I wrote in my notes, "Her rapid-fire questions are making even me nervous. She's about to trap him." Exclamation point. And I wrote, "Feeling of lamb being led to slaughter." Um and it was totally obvious where this was going. Like she had these old statements of him that he had made right after the collapse and then she was like, "You know, this interview happened on this date, this interview happened on that date. You know, your arrest happened on December 13th, 2022." And then she was like, "At that time, did you know that um you know, Caroline

Ellison uh and Gary Wang and Nishad Singh were cooperating with the government? Did you know that, you know, they had uh um uh given, you know, these different documents to the government, blah blah blah." I mean, it was like I I just can't even begin to emphasize it was like tension in the room. Like people also at different points, like she said, "Oh, so you know, you used to say these things." And then he kept being cagey, like, "I don't recall. Like I may not have phrased it that way. Like I don't remember phrasing it that way. I don't remember any instance when I said that." That kind of thing. And then she would pull up, you know, like a clip of his um you know, on a podcast or um uh pull up an article and then have like the quotes and stuff like that of the

direct language that she was using that he was claiming he didn't remember using. So honestly, not joking, like I felt like I was like bracing myself because there was just a lot of tension um and she had the receipts for everything. So like every single time she asked about something, if he did not take ownership of something that he had said, she uh would say she would pull up an exhibit and be like, "You know, look at the date on this. Like here's the exact language you used. Read it Read it aloud." Um she pulled up testimony he had given to Congress um using the language he was asking about where he kept saying like, "I don't remember any instance." Like stuff like that. So I mean, you guys, it was it it was very intense. The one thing is

that um there was a moment where it almost seemed like she was annoyed that he wasn't admitting and so um for the um congressional testimony, she said something like "Oh, um you know, you you're saying that you you, you know, that like um that you don't recall or whatever um or or you're saying like cuz I think she had asked him something and he wasn't admitting and he like said made some caveat about that language and she was like, 'Oh, but then did you tell the government you were just kidding?'" Um and then she had to rephrase it. Like there was a an objection um and she said, "Did you amend the statement that you had given to to Congress under oath?" So anyway, point is um there was just a lot of, you know, I wrote like

using Sam's words against him in my notes, stuff like that. Um by the way, yeah, here was one of the choice quotes that she pulled up from FTX's own podcast where he had said um that, you know, like regulation was important or or like FTX was transparent or something. And the reasoning he gave was, "So people are exposed to what they think they are exposed to and not extraneous things." Um so I wrote, you know, using his own words against him in all caps, I wrote, "He is very meek." So um yeah, there just were and then there were a lot of moments where she would ask him these questions and he would do a rapid-fire yep, yep, yep like to all these like kind of general statements.

But it would it felt like she's leading him to a moment where she's about to trap him in his own contradictions. This happened multiple times. So anyway, yeah, it was um and toward the end, he started getting even cagier and oftentimes for everything she was asking about, he would say things like, "You know, I don't recall using those exact words. I can't recall an exact instance when I said that." Um and it was yeah, um but there was another moment where again, when he said he didn't remember saying that FTX International was safe, then she pulled up something where like uh you know, um he said like the most regulated, the most trusted, stuff like

that. And I wrote um screaming emoji in my notes because I Anyway, I I just um I don't feel it's going well for him. Um and yeah, I I it seems like he looks cagey. However, I will say that when he came off the stand um he didn't look I mean, it's hard to tell just from looking at somebody, but um you know, I was kind of looking at his face because like to me, I was like, "This did not go well for him at all." Um but you know, his face um he just sort of seemed to be looking at the the crowd of people and um yeah, um you know, his his lawyers came.

The one thing I will say is that he is definitely better trained in answering in the sense that now his answers are brief. Um he doesn't do the whole like page-long uh single answer to one question. He will give a simple statement and it's short. Um so at least they appear to have trained him better over the weekend on that. Um but anyway, yeah, you guys, um it's it's getting intense and they've only gotten started and they're saying that they're going to have a significant cross-examination. So um I think tomorrow should be um you know, more of this.

Um and who knows, maybe it could even go into Wednesday. I don't know, the government seems to, like I said, have brought all the receipts. Um and they are at least yeah, this cross-examination examination so far is showing um pretty much all the contradictions and various things that he said. So that's the update from the courtroom and I will update you all again after when we leave and then of course have the um the more produced and polished podcast later on tonight.