Key leaders of the Democratic Party of Oregon overlooked multiple indications that the actual source of a record-breaking $500,000 donation was a cryptocurrency executive, not a financial transaction firm that the organization named as the donor, investigative records from the Oregon Department of Justice show.
In early October of 2022, the state Democratic Party reported the contributor of the largest ever donation to the party was Prime Trust, a Nevada financial technology company. Following inquiries from The Oregonian/OregonLive, the group’s executive director admitted weeks later that the contribution had actually come from Nishad Singh, then director of engineering at now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and that employees had not checked carefully enough into the source of the contribution.
Making a political contribution “in any name other than that of the person that in truth provides the contribution or donation” is a felony under Oregon law. Prosecutors with the Oregon Department of Justice determined earlier this year that they couldn’t find enough evidence to prove that any employee of the Democratic Party or FTX intentionally misreported the contribution.
But emails and interview memos from the investigation describe several instances of employees at the political organization ignoring major indications that Prime Trust was not the true source of the funds. Oregon political blogger Jeff Eager first reported on the records earlier this month.
Before the contribution came in, multiple leaders at the Democratic Party of Oregon expected that a person or political committee affiliated with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried or even the CEO himself was going to make a $500,000 contribution to the group, emails show.
An FTX consultant emailed Diana Rogalle, a paid fundraiser for the Democratic of Oregon, in late September that year to let her know that the donation was coming, emails showed. Democratic Party of Oregon employees were told to expect the contribution, and Executive Director Brad Martin and others later told investigators they expected the money to come from Protect Our Future PAC, a political action committee formed by Bankman-Fried that had already spent millions on the primary race for Oregon’s 6th congressional district.
The massive contribution came to the party’s account via a wire transfer on Oct. 4, stating Prime Trust LLC was the “originator” and listing Nishad Singh as “Originator to (beneficiary).”
Amelia Manlove, the state party’s campaign finance compliance officer, saw Singh’s name, but she told investigators she was not familiar with him and assumed he was arranging the contribution on behalf of someone else. She told investigators “It was not her job to know the people, just the legal details for filing the records, and she thought she had the details sorted out,” according to their report.
Manlove emailed Singh and Rogalle on Oct. 6 asking them to clarify the identity of the donor or record for the contribution, but she did not receive a response from either, the report states. Two days later, Susan McCue, an FTX representative who made arrangements for the contribution with Rogalle, wrote to Rogalle in an email that “Nishad prefers Prime Trust (though not strongly) so go w/that.”
Rogalle did not initially forward the email to Manlove or anyone else at the state Democratic Party, investigators determined, but instead called the party’s coordinated campaign director Aisling Coghlan and told her Prime Trust was the correct donor of record. Coghlan relayed that information to both Manlove and Martin on Oct. 8, though Manlove told investigators that Coghlan told her the true contributor “could” be Prime Trust.
By this point, Coghlan had asked Democratic Party of Oregon researcher Christa Buckland to look into Prime Trust’s political history. Buckland’s research raised further red flags that party leaders also overlooked.
Buckland found signs that Prime Trust, which had only made one small political contribution in its history, was likely not the true source of the contribution. She sent Coghlan a Politico article from April 2022 that revealed Bankman-Fried and Singh had contributed $14 million to the Protect Our Future PAC — contributions which initially were incorrectly reported as coming from Prime Trust.
Prime Trust’s involvement in that contribution was limited to “originating the wire transfer at the direction” of Singh and Bankman-Fried, Politico reported. It was later revealed that Prime Trust played the same role in the Oregon contribution.
Buckland told Coghlan in an email on Oct. 6 that “I believe the only way to know who the contribution is from would be to contact Prime Trust... . My bet would be they’ll say it’s from Bankman-Fried, but it’s possible it came from someone else.”
But Coghlan did not contact Prime Trust or ask any employee to do so, investigators found. Coghlan responded to Buckland that same day, saying she believed the contribution was from Prime Trust in this case and mentioned that Manlove was still seeking clarification from Rogalle.
Coghlan did, however, send Buckland’s summary of Politico’s reporting on FTX’s misreported $14 million contribution being falsely attributed to Prime Trust to Tim Leahy, Sen. Ron Wyden’s outreach director, later that night, emails show. Coghlan sent the article summary from Buckland to Leahy, adding that “This is the part that was interesting to me.” Rogalle, the contracted D.C.-based fundraiser, is a longtime fundraiser for Wyden, and Leahy had been copied on some of the emails about the prospective big donation to the state party from a FTX-related source.
Just one minute after sending the summarized Politico article to Leahy, Coghlan forwarded Buckland’s email to Martin containing a summarized Bloomberg profile of the company but took out a paragraph in Buckland’s original message with the information from the Politico article about FTX’s misreported contribution.
When investigators pointed out to Coghlan in 2024 that she omitted that information, she said she had no intention of hiding anything from Martin and had left it out accidentally.
Last year, Singh pleaded guilty to six criminal charges connected to his role as an FTX executive. These charges included wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate federal campaign finance laws. Bankman-Fried was sentenced earlier this year to 25 years in prison for his role in defrauding FTX customers of billions of dollars.
On Oct. 9, 2022, two days before its deadline to report the huge contribution, The Democratic Party of Oregon filed its report to the state citing Prime Trust as the donor.
Weeks later, The Oregonian/OregonLive published an article on Oct. 28, citing Prime Trust as the reported source of the contribution. Buckland emailed Manlove about the article, saying her research had indicated that Prime Trust was not behind the contribution.
Manlove responded within minutes, saying, “No, it WAS from Prime Trust LLC. If it were from someone else, we would not have been able to accept it because that would be a contribution in a false name, which is illegal to make and illegal to accept.”
“I will keep my mouth shut for sure,” Buckland emailed back. “I am just so surprised.”
It wasn’t until Oct. 31, following multiple inquiries from The Oregonian/OregonLive to the party and to Prime Trust, that Martin sent out a statement acknowledging that the contribution had come from Singh.
Martin and Manlove remain employed at the Democratic Party of Oregon. Coghlan has since left the party and works as a political consultant, according to notes from the investigation.
“The Oregon Department of Justice decision is conclusive and we are glad the investigation is completed,” Martin said in a statement Monday to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
State elections officials agreed last year to lower a fine against the Democratic Party of Oregon from $35,000 to $15,000 for misreporting the contribution and agreed to not seek criminal charges.
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