Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former adviser, and a few others were charged on Thursday by New York federal prosecutors. They reportedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of dollars which were a part of the funds raised by a campaign supporting Trump’s border wall project with Mexico.
What We Know:
- According to local law enforcement, Bannon was arrested Thursday morning near Westbrook, Connecticut, on the yacht owned by alleged dissident Guo Wengui. U.S Federal agents, Coast Guard, and officials from the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) assisted in the arrest.
- Bannon pleaded not guilty during a court appearance later that Thursday and was given a release bond of $5 million. Another condition of his bail was restricted travel. Bannon is not allowed to travel on private vehicles, such as yachts or airplanes, without the court’s permission.
Bannon claimed after exiting the federal courthouse that “this entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall”.
- Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea are charged with conspiracies of wire fraud and money laundering. The four men are suspect of using thousands of dollars from the crowdfunding campaign dubbed, “We Build the Wall,” for personal use.
- Kolfage, along with Bannon, promised donors the group was purely a “volunteer organization”. Since its creation, it’s raised over $25 million. The indictment stated that “100% of the funds raised…will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose”.
- Kolfage, for example, spent roughly $350,000 of the program’s income for personal use including but not limited to: cosmetic surgery, home renovations, a luxury SUV, and debts.
- Acting Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss later confirmed in a statement that the defendants did, in fact, end up “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”.
The indictment goes on to elaborate on how these men meticulously took advantage of people’s donations for things other than the group’s goals. It was uncovered that day that after the group was started, there was an agreement between Kolfage, Bannon, and Badolato, which guaranteed Kolfage “$100k upfront [and] then 20 [per] month”.
