Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyer struggles to poke holes in Caroline Ellison's testimony

Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyer on Thursday offered a meandering cross-examination of his client's former girlfriend, the government's key witness in the criminal fraud trial of the FTX co-founder.

Caroline Ellison had testified on Tuesday and Wednesday that Bankman-Fried directed her to siphon  money from FTX customer accounts to fund investments and trading strategies at Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research. Ellison was the CEO of Alameda when it and FTX collapsed in November of last year.

Ellison spent much of her testimony walking the jury through how she repeatedly had to tap into the customer deposits at FTX to solve problems at the hedge fund or at the exchange. FTX deposits would be withdrawn to pay for new investments or political donations, or to hide steep losses on Alameda's balance sheet, she testified. All of this was done at the direction of Bankman-Fried, she said.