Former Trump Advisor Accused Of Border Wall Money Fraud

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was arrested for several hours on charges of embezzling funds raised to build a wall between the US and Mexico. The court released him on bail pending consideration of the case on the merits, writes Air force.

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According to the US Department of Justice, Bannon and three of his associates fraudulently embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars through the “We Build the Wall” campaign, which crowdfunded $25 million through hundreds of thousands of small donations.

The 66-year-old political strategist received over a million dollars from this amount, part of which he spent on personal expenses, according to federal prosecutors from the famous Southern District of New York (this prosecutor's office is considered elite, its jurisdiction includes Manhattan).

Bannon was arrested by U.S. Postal Service agents at sea, aboard a 45-meter superyacht owned by the disgraced Chinese billionaire.

At the trial, Bannon refused to plead guilty and was released on $ 5 million bail. As he left the courtroom, he took off his mask and waved to the assembled reporters.

“This whole fiasco is [an attempt] to stop people who want to build a wall,” the political strategist said as he walked to his waiting car.

Trump's Reaction

President Donald Trump said he regretted the arrest of the former adviser, but had not spoken to him for several years and at one time spoke out strongly against private fundraising for the construction of the wall. The White House emphasizes that the president has nothing to do with this case.

Speaking at the White House hours after Bannon's arrest, Trump said he was "sorry," writes CNN.

“Well, I'm sorry. I haven’t talked to him in a while,” Trump said, noting that he was “involved in our campaign” and “very early on in a small part of the administration.” Bannon served in the Trump administration from the inauguration to August 2017.

Regarding the border wall fundraising project, Trump claimed that he “knows nothing” about it and does not know the people involved, even though there are other key allies on his council.

“I don't know anything about the project, except that I didn't like it when I read about it. I didn't like it. I said it was for the government, not for individuals, and it sounded like idle talk to me. It was a show, although perhaps a search for funds too, but let's see what happens next.

Bannon is not the first Trump adviser to come under investigation. His former campaign chief, Paul Manafort, was convicted of financial fraud, and another adviser, Roger Stone, was convicted of perjury and witness tampering.

National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn admitted to giving false testimony during FBI interrogations and cooperated with the investigation (he later stopped cooperating and tried to withdraw his guilty plea, and prosecutors dropped charges at the direction of Trump's political appointee, Attorney General William Barr; the resulting legal conflict has not yet been resolved resolved in the courts).

Organizers of the “We Build the Wall” campaign sought donations to build a wall with Mexico, a key Trump campaign promise.

On the subject: Senate report: Trump aide collaborated with Russian intelligence in 2016 elections

What Bannon is accused of

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said Bannon and three of his co-conspirators — Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea — “fraudulently obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors.”

The indictment cites assurances from Bannon and his associates, who promised not to take a dime from the donations.

Contrary to these assurances, the prosecution alleges, Bannon received over a million dollars through a non-profit organization he controls. At least some of that money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, went to Bannon's personal expenses, the prosecutor said.

She noted that Colfage, the founder of the fundraising campaign, secretly embezzled $ 350 in personal expenses.

The indictment details: Colfage used the money to renovate the house, bought a premium SUV, golf car, jewelry and even paid for plastic surgery, the prosecution said.

“Although donors were repeatedly told that Brian Kolfage […] would not receive a dime, the defendants secretly transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to live a lavish lifestyle,” Strauss said.

The accomplices reportedly used fake invoices and invoices to launder donations and cover up crimes.

On the subject: Department of State offers $ 10 million for information on interference in the US presidential election

Text messages and the "secret deal"

Prosecutors reviewed text messages between Bannon and his associates that show that $100 was intended as wages for Kolfage, and that in each of the next two months Bannon paid Kolfage another $000 "per a secret Bannon deal."

In the months that followed, Kolfage's "secret monthly salary" was allegedly funneled through other third-party entities that prosecutors described as alleged suppliers to the We Build the Wall group, and ultimately through a new channel created to "conceal the source and nature of the income."

However, in October 2019, Kolfage, Bannon and others began taking steps to cover up their conduct after the financial institution learned that We Build the Wall may be under federal criminal investigation, according to the indictment.

At this point, Colfage and Bannon began using encrypted messaging apps on their phones, Colfage stopped receiving secret wage payments, and a statement on the group's website saying he had not received compensation disappeared, the indictment says.

All four were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to launder money. For each item, the maximum punishment is imprisonment for 20 years (terms can be summed up).

Who is Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon led Trump's campaign in the final months of the 2016 campaign and was promoted to the White House's chief strategist after winning the election.

In the first months after Trump's victory, the political strategist became a key figure in palace intrigues, which were reported by endless information leaks from the White House in the media. In these messages, the authenticity of which is impossible to confirm, Bannon was assigned the role of a gray eminence who pushes Trump to take radical steps. It was he who was credited with the authorship of the ban on entry into the United States for representatives of six predominantly Muslim countries.

Bannon enjoyed the image of the evil puppeteer.

“Darkness is good,” Bannon told the Hollywood Reporter. - Dick Cheney, Darth Vader, Satan. This is power."

Bannon tried to shape Trump's slogans and instincts into a right-wing populist ideology. He called himself an economic nationalist, as opposed to ethnonationalists, as white supremacists call themselves in America. In his vision, three decades of globalization cost America millions of jobs and “created a middle class” in poor countries in Asia. He saw the solution as bringing manufacturing back to the United States by creating tariff barriers against foreign competitors and limiting immigration, which he envisioned would force businesses to hire Americans and pay them more.

Bannon left the White House in August 2017 but remained a staunch ally of Trump, and US media reported that Trump continued to consult with him. Everything changed in January 2018, when Michael Wolff published Fire and Fury, a look at the Trump-era White House from anonymous sources (the quotes in the book cannot be authenticated).

Wolfe wrote that Bannon considered the meeting between Trump's son and the Russians before the elections to be a betrayal, and he called Trump's daughter Ivanka stupid as a brick.

In response, the president severed all ties with the former adviser and declared that he had lost his mind.

After losing his influence in Washington, Bannon went on a European tour, announcing grandiose plans to create a pan-European coalition of populist-right forces and train new personnel for them.

What's going on with the Trump wall

The promise to build a wall along the southern border of the United States was a key and perhaps the most popular element of Trump's campaign. Among other things, he also promised that Mexico would pay for the construction of the wall, but after the elections he stopped insisting on this.

A significant number of barriers of different heights already exist on the US-Mexico border, but Trump insists on a solid wall (sometimes excluding sections where there are insurmountable natural barriers, like the Rio Grande River), which should stop the flow of illegal immigration.

Since coming to power, Trump has been enthusiastic about fulfilling that promise, but has faced a number of financial and legal challenges. The private owners of the border plots were reluctant to part with their land, and Congress, in which the Democrats won a majority in 2018, refused to allocate funds for the construction of the wall.

As a result, the presidential administration decided to use part of the military budget for these purposes, but there is still not enough money to complete it. Now, officials say, about 275 miles (442 kilometers) of barriers have been built - about half the length Trump is seeking.

Bannon and his partners' "We Build the Wall" campaign has built about four miles of wall.

In the current campaign, Trump put forward the slogan “Let's finish the wall!”

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