As the United States and many around the world have been focused on the political activities of FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) leading into the 2022 midterms, few have thought to examine how both SBF and his company affected local elections that occurred at the same time.
This GP journalist has learned that a prominent Democratic party political consultant, who is also the Aunt of SBF, had her hands in the campaigns of School Board and Judicial candidates in South Florida. Barbara Miller also worked as a liaison between FTX and the Broward County School Board highlighting their annual “Hackathon” scholarship contest.
Kudos to Red Broward for their consistent reporting on the local implications of the FTX scandal. They originally uncovered these ties between Broward County and FTX, not skipping a beat ever since.
Miller also worked as a campaign consultant to Broward County School Board Member Debbie Hixon, who is a widow of an employee who was murdered during the Parkland shooting. Hixon claimed on her most recent finance reports that she received $49,000 from the FTX ponzi scheme, but did not further elaborate on her role with the company.
Broward County School Board Member Debbie Hixon at the FTX Hackathon.
Hixon has been photographed with SBF and has spoken during their previous “Hackathon” conferences, according to a blog in South Florida called Red Broward. RB also uncovered how Hixon’s consultant, Barbara Miller, worked with her brother Joe Bankman to develop the “Hackathon” conference and scholarship specifically for public schools in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade County.
Both Miller and her husband have a history of anti-Trump and anti-DeSantis posts on social media.
Joseph Bankman was also recently a speaker at the FTX Sponsored and taxpayer funded “Middle Class Summit,” hosted by the non-profit OIC. It featured former DNC Chairwoman and South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, several Democrat state legislators, and local elected officials.
In March of 2022, students from Broward County were awarded $500k of the $1m annual prize money at “Hackathon,” where they competed for the money to help fund the best idea to improve mental or physical health. It remains unclear where those winnings actually went or if they were actually dispersed.
According to Red Broward, the FTX Future Fund’s senior staff quit earlier this month and stated that “already committed grants” will likely “not be honored.”
Last week, FTX filed for bankruptcy after liquidity issues swirled around Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire. According to Marketwatch, “The senior staff of Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic F
“The group added, ‘We are devastated to say that it looks likely that there are many committed grants that the Future Fund will be unable to honor.’”
Where did the $500,000 earned by the Broward Students go?
The Broward County School Board is no stranger to controversy or corruption. In August of this year, the hyper-leftist BCSB was reordered in a major way when Governor Ron DeSantis removed four BCSB members from office after a grand jury recommended their removal from office relating to their “mismanagement, fraud, neglect of duty, misuse of authority and other malfeasance relating to the Parkland school shooting tragedy in 2018.
Today, Governor Ron DeSantis suspended Broward School Board Members Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson from office following the recommendations of the Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury to suspend these board members due to their incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority. Even four years after the events of February 14, 2018, the final report of the Grand Jury found that a safety-related alarm that could have possibly saved lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “was and is such a low priority that it remains uninstalled at multiple schools,” and “students continue to be educated in unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago.” These are inexcusable actions by school board members who have shown a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement, across the district.
As a result he appointed four new members who have been dubbed “DeSantis’ Reform Board,” have taken several actions to clean up the Broward County School Board and improve the school system for students. This has led to the firing of Superintendent Vickie Cartwright, who worked with the disgraced former Board Members to issue a proclamation declaring their intent on overturning the “Parental Rights In Education” act signed into law by Governor DeSantis.
Broward County resident and investigative journalist Chris Nelson has been pleased with many improvements made by the new members and is excited about the election of pro-parent attorney Brenda Fam to the BCSB.
However, he told TGP that the revelations about FTX’s payments to a Board Member Debbie Hixon and the influence of Barbara Miller, Bankman-Fried’s Aunt (who is a Democrat political consultant and lobbyist), warrant an investigation by the Florida Commission on Ethics.
On Tuesday afternoon, he filed an official complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics, which you can read below.
FTX Ethics Complaint Broward County by Jacob Engels on Scribd
“I believe Debbie Hixon should be investigated for her roll in the FTX Hackathon. Not only is her campaign manager the Aunt of Sam Bankman-Fried, she also stated on her financial disclosure form that she received $49,000 in compensation from FTX.
Her disclosure provided no explanation for what that payment was for. Furthermore, how is this not a conflict of interest for her as a Broward County School Board member to received that compensation and then in her capacity as a school board member recommended that Broward County Public Schools in anyway be involved with FTX?”
FTX also spent close to $1.3m in Florida congressional races, boosting the primary campaigns of far-left March for our Lives activist Maxwell Frost (who won the general election after a primary featuring almost a dozen candidates) and South Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz. SBF and his allies also bolstered Never Trump Republicans, which tells you all you need to know about his intentions in DC.
The way FTX snaked into the Broward County School Board really leaves you wondering, how many other local school boards and cities around America have been corrupted by SBF?
We sadly may never know.
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