Fairshake, the largest crypto-funded super PAC in the 2024 elections, likely would not have launched without the actions of Securities Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in an interview with 60 Minutes this Sunday should be broadcast.

Gensler, who will step down from office on January 20, led the federal government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. Gensler’s SEC filed more than 120 lawsuits against crypto companies.

Garlinghouse said the SEC’s approach to crypto prompted Ripple and other crypto companies to launch Fairshake, the industry’s largest super PAC, in 2023.

“People ask themselves, ‘Why did these companies come together and organize and say, ‘This is important,'” Garlinghouse said. “And it’s a response to a war on crypto.”

“So if there had been an SEC chairman other than Gary Gensler…,” “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan told Garlinghouse.

“I’m not sure Fairshake would exist,” Garlinghouse said.

Brennan replied, “Really?”

“I am…absolutely,” Garlinghouse said.

The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020 at the end of the Trump administration – before Gensler was chairman – on the grounds that the sale of the cryptocurrency XRP constituted the sale of an unregistered security. Garlinghouse said Ripple has spent more than $150 million fighting the SEC in court, arguing that the digital currency XRP should not be subject to the agency’s registration and disclosure requirements as if it were a stock offering.

In response to Garlinghouse’s comments to 60 Minutes, an SEC spokesperson said: “Any amount spent by the crypto industry on legal defense or influence operations pales in comparison to the savings crypto investors have lost to fraud and failures.”

The full cryptocurrency story will air this Sunday on 60 Minutes at 7pm ET on CBS stations.