Steve Bannon charged in alleged border wall fundraising scheme
Authorities have arrested Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon, accusing him of defrauding border wall donors.
Former senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested and charged with fraud for what federal prosecutors said was a scheme to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from a crowdfunding campaign that aimed to help achieve one of the president’s signature campaign promises: building a wall along the Southern US border.
The We Build the Wall campaign wasn’t connected to President Trump but was promoted by several people close to him. It raised more than $US25 million, according to prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, which brought the case. The group has spent less than half of its funds on two short stretches of wall in New Mexico and Texas.
“As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.
Leaders of ‘We Build The Wall’ online fundraising campaign charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors https://t.co/cH2abWm2Ph pic.twitter.com/NKxfKXkcEX
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) August 20, 2020
Ms Strauss assumed leadership of the nation’s most prominent federal prosecutor’s office after Mr Trump ousted former US Attorney Geoffrey Berman at the request of Attorney General William Barr in June. A law-enforcement official said Mr Barr was briefed on the case before Thursday’s arrests, but declined to elaborate.
In addition to Mr Bannon, the indictment charges Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
A lawyer for Mr Bannon didn’t respond to a request for comment. Mr Badolato and Mr Kolfage didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mr. Shea couldn’t be reached.
For Mr Bannon, the indictment marked the latest chapter in a fall from power for the former investment banker and media executive whose keen understanding of conservative media helped propel him to top jobs in Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign and then the White House before the president ousted him seven months later.
Mr Bannon — who more recently has been recording a radio show called “War Room” together with Jason Miller, who joined the Trump campaign as a senior adviser in June — faces multiple other probes. Federal and state authorities are investigating a media company linked to Mr Bannon and exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui that raised more than $US300 million in a private offering this year, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
It also emerged this week that the Senate Intelligence Committee referred Mr Bannon last year to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, according to a person familiar with the matter, believing he had lied to congressional investigators during the panel’s yearslong investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It isn’t known whether law enforcement took any action on it.
Mr Bannon has declined to comment on the Guo investigation. His lawyer has said he wasn’t aware of the Senate committee’s referral.
Mr Bannon was arrested Thursday on a boat near Connecticut by investigators from the US Postal Service, said Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the Manhattan US attorney’s office. Mr Bannon has been spending significant time recently aboard a yacht linked to Mr Guo, according to videos of the two men and a person who knows Mr Bannon.
Mr Bannon joins a half-dozen other Trump associates who have been indicted or convicted in recent years. A federal jury last fall found Roger Stone, a longtime friend of the president who advised his 2016 campaign, guilty of lying to Congress and witness tampering related to his work on the Trump campaign. Michael Cohen, the president’s former longtime lawyer, and Paul Manafort, one of the president’s 2016 campaign chairmen, are currently serving out their sentences. Other associates of the president are awaiting sentencing.
The US attorney’s office in Manhattan has led many of the investigations into Mr Trump’s allies. Mr Berman told lawmakers last month that he was concerned his abrupt firing would hinder continuing investigations, particularly when Mr Barr didn’t immediately select Ms Strauss, his former deputy, as his acting successor.
Mr Trump on Thursday told reporters both that he didn’t know anything about the We Build the Wall campaign, and that he didn’t like the project because he thought it was “being done for showboating reasons.” He said he hadn’t dealt with Mr Bannon “for a very long period of time.”
Mr Bannon has long been a forceful backer of the president’s campaign promise to build a wall along the southern US border. In the early days of the Trump administration, Mr Bannon memorialised the promise to build a wall “and eventually make Mexico pay for it” on a dry erase board in his West Wing office, where it was one of more than four dozen pledges on the board. His push for a wall continued after he left the White House in 2017. In 2019, he traveled to New Mexico with Donald Trump Jr, one of the president’s sons, to tout their efforts to build a border barrier on private land.
We Build the Wall isn’t connected to the Trump campaign or administration, though the crowdfunding campaign was praised by several members of the president’s inner circle and relied on the Trump family to appear credible. The website features a picture of Kris Kobach, the group’s general counsel who recently lost the GOP Kansas Senate primary and in 2019 claimed the group had the president’s blessing.
It also features pictures of Mr Trump Jr. as well as a quote from him at a 2018 event calling the group “private enterprise at its finest.” The website also quotes former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski hailing “how beautiful this wall is.” Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr Trump Jr., said he gave a speech at one We Build the Wall event over a year ago and “besides that, has no involvement with their organization.” She said Mr Trump Jr. was unaware the group had featured him as a testimonial on its website and hadn’t given his permission. “If he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions,” she said.
Mr Lewandowski didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mr Kolfage, the founder of We Build the Wall, is an Air Force veteran who ran Facebook pages and related sites that promoted right-wing conspiracy theories. He has said he sought Mr Bannon’s help when Facebook shut down his pages in 2019. Two days before his indictment, Mr. Kolfage tried to start a new GoFundMe campaign to support a class-action lawsuit against the Black Lives Matter movement. GoFundMe took down his campaign hours later, he tweeted.
Mr Badolato is a longtime associate of Mr Bannon and briefly wrote for the conservative website Breitbart News, which Mr Bannon once headed. Mr Bannon in 2016 used Mr Badolato’s Sarasota, Florida, home as his address for his voter registration. Mr Badolato also formed a company that had a one-year deal with Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for the 2016 Trump campaign and where Mr Bannon served on the board, according to a document obtained by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018 after allegations about its misuse of data and campaign tactics.
Mr Shea was the host of a conservative website called Patriot Uprising. Since December 2018, the four men convinced people to donate to the campaign, telling the public they do “not take a penny in salary or compensation” and that “100% of the funds raised...will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose,” prosecutors said. They said Mr Bannon stated publicly, “We’re a volunteer organisation.” Prosecutors said the four men received hundreds of thousands of donor funds from the organisation. Mr Kolfage took more than $US350,000, according to prosecutors. Mr. Bannon, who received more than $US1 million, used an unnamed nonprofit to cover his personal expenses, prosecutors said.
We Build the Wall has touted raising more than $US25 million from 500,000 donors, including more than $US17 million on GoFundMe.
Bobby Whithorne, a spokesperson for GoFundMe, said it has a “zero-tolerance policy for fraudulent behavior” and has been cooperating with law enforcement throughout the investigation.
When the fundraising effort began in 2018, We Build the Wall said it would deliver money to the federal government. When it became clear that wouldn’t be possible, the group changed its goal and became a nonprofit in 2019. GoFundMe offered donors the option of a refund at that time, said Mr Whithorne.
We Build the Wall first paid for half a mile of private border wall built by construction firm Fisher Industries in Sunland Park, N.M. Mr Kolfage said in a December interview that the work cost about $US9 million.
Mr Kolfage said the group’s chief financial officer, Amanda Shea, was a paid employee, but he himself was a volunteer. Ms Shea is the wife of Mr Shea, according to multiple media accounts.
Fisher Industries, a firm trying to showcase its construction to secure federal contracts, then moved on to build a $US40 million private wall on the South Texas border early this year. We Build the Wall contributed less than $US2 million, and repeatedly claimed credit for the build.
In December, Mr Kolfage said the group had spent at least $US1 million hosting events and paying lawyers, had $US8 million in the bank and $US5 million in pledges, but the group’s claims and fundraising have drawn legal scrutiny, including an investigation in Florida, where it is registered as a nonprofit.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said Thursday the state investigation remains active. Now that officers of the nonprofit have been charged, its charity status is immediately suspended, the agency said.
The Wall Street Journal
Likely Hezbollah successor ‘killed’: Defence Minister
The likely successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the assassinated leader of terrorist group Hezbollah, is likely to have been killed by the IDF in an airstrike last week.
Maddie suspect acquitted of rape charges
Prosecutors urgently launch an appeal and consider charging rapist Christian Brueckner of murdering Madeleine McCann after German legal shock.