UPDATE: Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been released on $ 5 million bond, secured by $ 1.75 million in assets, at the expense of fraud and money laundering.
A smiling Bannon left the federal court in Manhattan with a smile, claiming his charge was a ‘failure’. Bannon said that “this very failure is to stop people wanting to build the wall.”
Bannon pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering in an alleged scheme to steal money donated to a “We Build the Wall” online lender.
The charges were brought by New York Southern District prosecutors working for the federal Department of Justice.
EARLIER: Steve Bannon, former chief strategist in Donald Trump, has been accused by federal prosecutors in an alleged scheme along with others of truncating money from a crowdfunding campaign We Build the Wall for their own personal benefit.
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Bannon was named along with three other suspects, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea. (Read the indictment here) They were arrested Thursday morning on charges that include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to federal prosecutors in New York, Bannon and the others raised more than $ 25 million for a campaign to build a wall along the southern border, promising that the money would be spent on construction.
“While several times donors made sure that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public figure of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the suspects secretly tried to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to donate his money. to finance lavish lifestyles, ”according to Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney in New York’s Southern District.
Bannon pleaded not guilty to appearing in federal court in New York, and smiled and smiled as he left the courthouse. He was released on bail, with travel restricted to New York and Washington.
“This whole failure is to stop people wanting to build the wall,” he said.
Bannon was Trump’s chief strategist for the first six months of his presidency and was considered the architect of the president’s nationalist agenda, but left immediately after the arrival of a new chief of staff, John F. Kelly. Bannon fell out of favor with Trump in January 2018, following the publication of Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury. Bannon was quoted as making ridiculous remarks about Donald Trump Jr.
At the White House on Thursday, Trump distanced himself from Bannon, even though the We Build the Wall campaign was intended to support one of the president’s signature initiatives. ‘I feel very bad. I have not been with him for a long time, ‘Trump said, adding that he “did not know the other people himself.”
He said he thought the We Build the Wall project was done for “showboating” reasons, and the White House later issued a statement saying the president “always felt that the wall should be a government project and that it should be is large and complex to handle privately. ”
Lawyers allege that the scheme involved using fraudulent invoices and accounts to know the donations.
The indictment alleges that Kolfage raised more than $ 350,000 in funds from the campaign, while Bannon, through a non-profit he controls, received more than $ 1 million. Some of that money was used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses, according to prosecutors. According to The New York Times, Bannon was arrested on a $ 35 million yacht off the coast of Connecticut. The ship belonged to Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman with whom Bannon had collaborated in business operations.
The two prosecutors – conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering – each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Bannon was an investment banker and financier for entertainment companies in the 1990s, which over the next two decades transformed his career into a conservative documentary producer and the chief executive of Breitbart News, which became the voice of the alt-right movement. In August 2016, Trump approached him to serve as CEO of his shaky presidential campaign, and Bannon received credit for reversing the operation along with new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.
After Trump’s unexpected victory, when Bannon was appointed chief strategist in the White House, he soon became a source of media intrigue as the behind – the – scenes orchestrator of a chaotic start to the presidency. He even appeared on the cover of Time with the headline, “The Great Manipulator.”
