Last September, when FTX was still a multi-billion dollar company, and Ryan Salame was still one of its flashy young executives, the emerging G.O.P. mega-donor decided to arrange a dinner in Washington, D.C. with another Republican on a similarly limitless upward trajectory: the powerful political consultant Jeff Roe. Both Salame and Roe brought their own entourages to the Capital Grille: Among them, Gabe Bankman-Fried, the brother of Salame’s soon-to-be-indicted boss; David Polyansky, one of Roe’s top operatives, who is now steering Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign; and Tyler Deaton, then Salame’s empowered donor-advisor.

The dinner was proposed by Salame’s team, but the love flowed both ways. The explicit purpose of the meeting, according to a memo Axiom prepared beforehand, was “to build a relationship with these TOP donors,” noting that Sam Bankman-Fried was the “5th biggest Republican donor this cycle,” among other potentially useful biographical details (Salame was “very proud of a group of restaurants he owns in the Berkshires,” Deaton was “married to a man” and “considers himself a left of center Republican,” etcetera). Salame was, by that point, a serious G.O.P. powerbroker himself. Earlier that year, he had quietly supplied now-Senator Eric Schmitt, an Axiom client, with several hundred thousand dollars to win the Missouri Republican primary. Salame had occasionally consulted Roe for informal advice on the finer points of congressional politics. Roe, who viewed Salame as an ascendant purse in the party, was happy to oblige.