CNN anchor Jake Tapper confronted Repeated Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Sunday over the support of DHS officials from the “We Build the Wall” money-laundering campaign, which federal prosecutors are now claiming to be a scam was to personally enrich personal Trump strategist Steve Bannon and campaign founder Brian Kolfage.
Last week, Bannon, Kolfage, and two other employees were arrested and charged with fraud charges, with prosecutors saying they “cheated hundreds of thousands of donors, taking advantage of their interest in financing a border wall.”
Bannon is accused of embezzling more than $ 1 million to pay for personal expenses and secretly paying Kolfage, while Kolfage allegedly took over $ 350,000 from the campaign, in part to buy a boat called Warfighter. Bannon has pleaded guilty, claiming the accusers are a ‘political hit’.
Wolf interviewed on CNNs State of the Union, Tapper praised the acting DHS chief of the private border wall fundraiser last year that Wolf recorded the campaign a “game changer” that he “welcomed[d]”As” part of the solution. “
“You lent your credibility and the credibility of the Homeland Security department to what prosecutors say is a scam,” Tapper said. “Do you regret that? Are you embarrassed for that? ‘
“No,” Wolf replied. “Again, I think you hit it on the head, that is, I said, and I will continue to say, I welcome anything that wants to be part of the solution. I did not specifically support this particular organization or what they do. ”
The CNN anchor pointed out that Wolf made an unannounced visit to El Paso to observe the project, prompting Wolf to claim that it was just part of his’ first trip ‘to the border’ as acting secretary, adding that he was just trying to “get a sense of everything” that was happening in the area.
‘I wanted to understand how a private organization, if they built this on themselves with their own funding, how it integrated with what CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] did at the border, ‘he said. “I do not have a single group or other support.”
Tapper then loudly questioned him when Wolf welcomed the “support of scam artists who want to be part of the solution”, and led Wolf to insist that he “absolutely” did not.
The host of the State of the Union then noted that the fundraising campaign advertised Wolf’s support for the project in the past. Wolf, for his part, claimed that DHS had previously asked We Build the Wall to take down that press release because it was inaccurate.
“Sorry you are going to try this part – I mean, there have been months and months and months of questions being asked about this organization,” Tapper asked. “I mean, shouldn’t anyone at DHS have converted this group before sending you there?”
Wolf insists he had no idea that potential fraud was tied to the group, and that his meeting with them was just a small part of a longer visit to the border.
“I wanted to go there to understand what my husbands and wives saw, all the worries they had there, and then move on,” he concluded. “Again, a ten minute visit, and it’s absolutely fitting for me to understand what the men and women of the Border Patrol are doing not just with our infrastructure, but with other donated infrastructure and other efforts along that southwestern border.”
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