A since disgraced 20-something cryptocurrency executive who gave the Democratic Party of Oregon its largest contribution in party history told investigators he found it “hilariously funny” that party officials reported, falsely, that the money came from the bank he used to transmit the donation, records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive show.

Nishad Singh, then a high flying executive of crypto firm FTX and now a convicted felon swept up in the larger client-defrauding crimes of his boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, donated a half million dollars on the advice of an FTX official he barely knew, he told investigators at the Oregon Department of Justice. Mark Wetjen, who spearheaded FTX’s operations in Washington, D.C., told Singh that giving big to the Oregon party “would really help FTX as a whole,” Singh told them. So he did.

Singh, who was working in FTX’s Bahamas headquarters, knew nothing of Oregon Democrats, never spoke to any state party officials and authorized sending the $500,000 from one of his bank accounts with little reflection, according to investigative memos. He did so using his account at Prime Trust, a Nevada financial institution that specializes in wiring money from cryptocurrency financial accounts to ordinary ones.

Officials with the Democratic Party of Oregon turned themselves inside out trying to figure out how to credit the contribution during the days after receiving his Oct. 4, 2022, mega gift, ahead of their deadline to report it to state campaign finance regulators, records show. They emailed Singh and others associated with the contribution, phoned and emailed amongst themselves, commissioned research into Prime Trust – and also ignored multiple red flags communicated among Democratic operatives that the Nevada firm was not the real source of the money, records show.

State party leaders, an FTX contractor and the D.C.-based fundraiser the state party paid to bring in the eye-popping contribution all appeared to believe that Singh, whose name appeared on the wire transfer form documenting the contribution, had been asked what person or entity was the true “donor of record” of the $500,000.

The FTX contractor who helped arrange the donation emailed the state party’s D.C.-based fundraiser that “Nishad prefers Prime Trust (though not strongly) so go w that. Thx!”

In fact, no one ever reached Singh to ask who the actual donor was. (They apparently reached a proxy or proxies multiple steps removed from Singh.) And if they had, he told Oregon investigators, he would have said what was true: He was.

The whole purpose of making the donation, he told them, was to curry favor with Democrats for FTX and himself. So he had zero motivation to hide the true source of the money. Still, Democratic Party of Oregon officials did so, inaccurately citing his wishes as their basis for doing so.

It was only after Hillary Borrud, a reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive, questioned officials with the state party and Prime Trust about why a Nevada wire transfer firm would want to influence Oregon politics that the party’s inaccurate report of the money’s source came to light. She posed those questions in late October 2022, less than two weeks before the general election and after the Democratic Party of Oregon spent the money on a flyer smearing Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazen. The ad falsely claimed Prime Trust, not the FTX executive, was one of its primary financiers.

Last year, the Secretary of State’s Office, overseen by Democrats, proposed to fine the state Democratic Party $35,000 for misreporting Singh’s donation. But it subsequently slashed the penalty to $15,000 and agreed not to pursue a criminal case against the party. Last month, the Oregon Department of Justice, overseen by Democrat Ellen Rosenblum, announced it had closed its investigation into Singh’s donation without finding enough evidence to prove that Singh or state party officials violated state campaign finance laws because it said there was insufficient evidence they knew they were providing false information.

On the last Friday of October in 2022, Singh learned from an FTX Signal group chat that the Democratic Party of Oregon had misreported the source of his donation and was likely to be sanctioned for the false report.

“Singh recalls responding to the text string that the contribution was from him and he was not sure how the error occurred. Singh dismissed it at the time as a clerical error and thought it was ‘hilariously funny,’” an Oregon Department of Justice special agent wrote.

Betsy Hammond oversees coverage of state politics and government as well as education, Portland City Hall and homelessness. Reach her at betsyhammond@oregonian.com or follow her at @OregonPolEds

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