It's not clear to me that donating to politicians necessarily buys you clemency (in the absence of explicit quid pro quo), but accepting the premise, I think at a certain point, when your crimes and donations are widely publicized, there's a phase transition where it's more likely to work against you. The politicians can't bare the perception of having been bought, and whatever influence they're able to muster is directed against you.
But it's not clear to me that donating to campaigns in a handful of election cycles buys you very much influence within the DoJ. Influencing politicians in order to impact the nomination of judges or other appointees, or to pass certain laws - those are clear mechanisms, but they take many election cycles to implement. It seems to me like SBF's influence campaign was successfully building good will for the crypto legislation he supported, but that FTX/Alameda blew up before that could come to fruition.
I expect his donations to be largely neutral to his potential prosecution but am open to reporting surfacing facts to the contrary.
If he paid enough of the right ones in Bahamas, combined with their extradition policy being what it is, that'd be his one hope. American politicians might promise you a lot, but at the end of the day, the checks and balances don't even give them leeway to truly be quite this openly corrupt. Now, a staged suicide and a new identity abroad...well, you'd have to have paid a LOT of bribes, but this isn't impossible...
Right, I would think that bribing politicians only gets you favors if both a) the favors have sufficient political cover, and b) there is the prospect of further bribes. Neither of those seem true here.
For a), SBF has become a dirty name and politicians don't have cover to do anything blatantly favorable to him.
For b), any money he might have touched is under intense scrutiny, especially if it makes its way to a politician. Ironically, his best hope might be if he had untraceably moved money into cryptocurrency, especially stablecoins.
But it's not clear to me that donating to campaigns in a handful of election cycles buys you very much influence within the DoJ. Influencing politicians in order to impact the nomination of judges or other appointees, or to pass certain laws - those are clear mechanisms, but they take many election cycles to implement. It seems to me like SBF's influence campaign was successfully building good will for the crypto legislation he supported, but that FTX/Alameda blew up before that could come to fruition.
I expect his donations to be largely neutral to his potential prosecution but am open to reporting surfacing facts to the contrary.