Steve Bannon called his arrest Thursday a “political hit-track” and vowed to fight the federal indictment alleging he cheated hundreds of thousands of people who donated to a money-laundering campaign to build a border wall with Mexico.
“I will not make an inch,” Bannon said Friday on America’s Voice News. “All these charges are nonsense. It’s a political hit.”
STEVE BANNON PLEADS NOT GUILTY FOLLOW IN INDICTMENT IN ‘WE BUILD THE WALL’ CASE
Bannon said federal authorities are trying to silence him.
“This failure yesterday was to intimidate anyone who wants to talk about American sovereignty and talk about the wall,” Bannon said. “We will never stop talking about this and fighting for it.”
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon. (AP Photo / Domenico Stinellis)
Bannon, a former adviser to Trump and an architect of his 2016 campaign, was on board a $ 28 million yacht owned by a Chinese billionaire when he was arrested Thursday morning on fraud at Long Island Sound near Westbrook, Connecticut. , according to reports.
BANNON WAS CHINESE BILLIONAIERS ‘$ 28M YACHT OFF CONNECTICUT WHEN ARRESTED
Bannon then pleaded not guilty in federal court in Manhattan after he was accused along with three others who are accused of donating to the online fundraising campaign known as ‘We Build the Wall’ which is $ 25 million raised.
Bannon was released on a $ 5 million bond and took to the airwaves to defend himself.
“Everyone knows I love a fight,” Bannon said. “You know I was called a honey badger for many years. You know that honey badger does not give up. That you know that I have been in this for a long time. I am in this for fighting.”
STEVE BANNON, ‘WE BUILD THE WALL’ ORGANIZERS ARRESTED, CHARGED WITH DEFRAUDING DONORS
Trump immediately distanced himself from Bannon and the campaign for private border walls.
Trump said he “feels very bad” that his former adviser was arrested for fraudulent donors and called the project “invalid.” He said he had not treated Bannon in “a very long time”.
“I feel very bad. I have not dealt with him for a very long time,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “I did not deal with him at all.”
The president said he “knew absolutely nothing about the project”, but also said he “did not like it”.
“I thought it was done for showboating reasons,” Trump said.
TRUMP REACTS TO BANNON ARREST IN ‘VERY SAD’
According to the indictment, Bannon and co-defendant Brian Kolfage raised money for a ‘volunteer organization’ and told the public that 100 percent of donations would go to the federal government building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The campaign’s website said that all the money raised to the government would go towards building the wall, and that if they did not meet their fundraising goal, they would “return every single purse,” according to the indictment.
“These representations were false,” the prosecutor read.
Within a week of Kolfage launching the campaign in December 2018, they had raised roughly $ 17 million, prosecutors said.
Lawyers claim that Kolfage, Bannon, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea took money for themselves because the campaign raised more than $ 25 million. The indictment alleges that Bannon received more than $ 1 million through a nonprofit which he then used for personal expenses and to pay Kolfage.
Prosecutors said Bannon and the others used the nonprofit and a shell company to hide the payments to Kolfage “by using false invoices and sham ‘vendor arrangements”, as well as other ways to keep the payments quiet. The indictment stated that in order to raise money, Kolfage and Bannon ‘repeatedly and falsely’ told the public that Kolfage “would not take a penny” in compensation.
Bannon, 66, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each serving a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Fox News’s Morgan Phillips, Marta Dhanis and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
