SBF's claim is that the Republican donations were "dark", meaning is funneled through super PACs. These are famously not public record. He states he did this to hide them from the media.
Public record showed that he is #2 individual donor to Democrats. He claimed that he also donated a similar amount to Repulicans via "dark channel" or something like that, so no record, let alone public.
The HN commenters in question were universally saying that he made up the donations to Republicans to cover up his more extensive connections to Democrats.
https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/29/sam-bankman-fried-poli...