The book excerpt didn’t discuss why SBF, the founder of now-bankrupt crypto currency exchange FTX, did not press ahead with the plans

Jailed former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried considered paying former U.S. President Donald Trump to not run for re-election in 2020, as per a part of a forthcoming book published on Sunday.

In the excerpt published in the Washington Post, Michael Lewis, the author of “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon”, said SBF at the time was planning to give $15 million to $30 million to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell to defeat the “Trumpier” candidates in the Senate races.

On a different front, he explained to me, as the plane descended into Washington, he was exploring the legitimacy of paying Donald Trump himself not to run for president, Lewis stated.

His team had somehow created a back channel into the Trump operation and came back with the not terribly Earth-shattering news that Donald Trump might actually have his price: $5 billion. Or so Sam was told by his team, he added.

The excerpt didn’t discuss why SBF, the founder of now-bankrupt crypto currency exchange FTX, did not press ahead with the plans.

Mark Botnick, a spokesperson for SBF, refused to comment on the excerpt, while representatives for Trump didn’t immediately respond.

SBF has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of fraud and conspiracy arising out of the crypto currency exchange’s failure in November last year.

Sam Bankman-Fried faces a statutory maximum of 110 years in prison, though any sentence would be determined by the judge in charge of the case based on a number of factors, and he would likely get far less.

Lewis’ book release concurs with the start of SBF’s fraud trial this week.