When stating easily verifiable information about the cryptocurrency industry the proof/sources request as some form of rebuttal seems to be a very common respone, always find it intruiging that many either don't want to search themselves or perhaps simply want to use it as a way to discredit a comment.

3rd result from googling "friedman bitfinex":

http://www.friedmanllp.com/insights/auditor-engagement

Now you said Friedman "explicitly stated it was not an audit", I searched and all i can find is blog posts and reddit threads. Any chance you could procure this explicit statement? Thanks.

The url I provided says the compete opposite and itself links to the original source I offered.