Oregon Department of Justice officials announced Wednesday that they closed their investigation into a former cryptocurrency executive’s $500,000 political donation to the state Democratic Party in 2022 without finding enough evidence to prove the misreported contribution criminally violated state campaign finance laws.
Nishad Singh, who in 2022 was an executive at FTX, sent the Democratic Party of Oregon its largest donation on record in the final weeks of the competitive 2022 election for governor. At the time, Democrats reported the money was from a Las Vegas payment processing company called Prime Trust. After The Oregonian/OregonLive inquired about the transaction, the party said the money was actually from Singh.
Emails were later released that showed Democratic officials asking Singh’s representatives how they should report his donation. For example, the party’s compliance director asked Singh who should be listed as the “donor of record” in Oregon campaign finance records. A person in Singh’s office wrote back, “Nishad prefers Prime Trust.”
Under Oregon law, it is a Class C felony to make or accept a campaign contribution under a “false name.”
However on Wednesday Michael Slauson, chief counsel of the state’s Criminal Justice Division, said in a statement that prosecutors did not find sufficient evidence “to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Singh made the contribution in a name other than his own and that he did so knowingly.”
“Evidence that the contribution was made in a false name because of a miscommunication, inadvertence, or negligence would not suffice,” said Slauson, who oversaw the day-to-day work of the investigation.
Slauson similarly wrote in a letter to the secretary of state’s elections program manager that state Democratic Party officials who agreed to report the donation came from Prime Trust relied on a fundraising consultant who told them so. The party officials did so even though some of them knew Prime Trust had earlier been falsely reported as the source of a large contribution to a political committee outside Oregon that was in fact given by Singh and his boss, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, a Democrat who has contributed more than $100,000 from her own campaign to the Democratic Party of Oregon over the years, recused herself from the investigation. Rosenblum’s current term ends after this year and she is not seeking reelection.
As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in May, Rosenblum is not the only lawyer with close ties to both the Department of Justice and Democratic Party of Oregon. The attorney for the Democratic Party of Oregon, Harry Wilson of the Portland firm Markowitz Herbold, has joined other lawyers from his firm in representing the state as a contracted special assistant attorney general on multiple high profile cases, including suing software giant Oracle over the failure of Cover Oregon and suing members of the notorious Sackler family over allegations the family siphoned off money from pharmaceutical company Purdue.
Officials at the Secretary of State’s Office, which originally investigated the misreported contribution, also had ties to the Democratic Party of Oregon. Oregon’s elections director, Molly Woon, who worked as the Democratic Party of Oregon’s communications director and deputy director before going to work for the Secretary of State in 2021, opted not to recuse herself from overseeing the high-profile investigation. The Democratic secretary of state at the time, Shemia Fagan, who later resigned following revelations she was moonlighting as a high-paid consultant for a marijuana retailer, received more than $400,000 in support for her campaigns from the Democratic Party of Oregon over the years and also donated close to $200,000 in campaign funds to the party.
Last year, the Secretary of State slashed a proposed fine on the Democratic Party of Oregon for misreporting Singh’s donation, from $35,000 to $15,000 and agreed not to pursue a criminal case against the party.
The case provided a window into how Oregon Democratic party leaders work with national fundraisers and campaign staffers for the state’s congressional representatives to raise money for state political campaigns. Emails surfaced during the investigation showing FTX attorney Mark Wetjen, fundraiser Diana Rogalle referred to by FTX’s political strategist as “all things (Ron) Wyden” and state party staffers discussing the donation and how to report it to the state elections division. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s campaign staff were copied on some of the exchanges.
Ultimately, Oregon DOJ’s Slauson wrote in his letter Wednesday, “the evidence available to us falls short of demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that any one person knowingly caused the contribution to be made or received in a false name.”
—Hillary Borrud is an investigative reporter. Reach her at 503-294 4034, hborrud@oregonian.com or @hborrud.
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