Steve Bannon to Face the Music
Story by Ewan Palmer
05/01/24
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Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump, appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on May 25, 2023 in New York City. Bannon has been charged with money laundering, conspiracy, and attempting to defraud in connection with the 'We Build the Wall' scheme.
Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump, appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on May 25, 2023 in New York City. Bannon has been charged with money laundering, conspiracy, and attempting to defraud in connection with the 'We Build the Wall' scheme.
© Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images
Top Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon is set to appear in a New York court Wednesday in connection with allegations that he defrauded people who donated to a campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Bannon, a former White House senior adviser, is scheduled to appear in front of Judge Juan Merchan for a pretrial motion hearing at the New York Supreme Criminal Court, where Bannon's lawyers are expected to argue that the case should be thrown out.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty to several charges of money laundering, conspiracy and scheming to defraud in connection with $15 million in donations a "We Build the Wall" fundraising campaign received.
Merchan originally scheduled Bannon's trial to take place in May, but he has since postponed the case until September. The judge is presiding over Trump's hush-money trial, which is on break Wednesdays and expected to last several more weeks. Newsweek had contacted Bannon for comment via email.
In September 2022, Bannon was charged in connection with money laundering allegations that stemmed from a GoFundMe campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a key 2016 campaign promise from Trump.
Bannon was previously charged in an almost identical federal investigation before being pardoned by Trump hours before the then-president left office in January 2021.
Related video: Steve Bannon Slams 'Poisonous Serpent' Close To Donald Trump (Newsweek)
Steve Bannon Slams 'Poisonous Serpent' Close To Donald Trump
Manhattan prosecutors revived the investigation in September 2022 with state-level charges against Bannon, which are not covered by presidential pardons.
Bannon was also found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress in July 2022 after defying a subpoena issued to him by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack. He has not spent any time in jail, pending the result of an appeal.
In April 2023, Brian Kolfage, a U.S. Air Force veteran and founder of the We Build the Wall organization, was sentenced to over four years in jail after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and other tax- and wire-fraud charges in connection with the millions donated to the campaign, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a press release.
Andrew Badolato, a co-defendant, also pleaded guilty to wire-fraud conspiracy and was sentenced to three years.
A third defendant, Timothy Shea, was found guilty at trial of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and obstruction of justice. In July, he was sentenced to 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Shea was also ordered to forfeit $1,801,707 and pay restitution in the amount of $1,801,707.
All three men were found to have devised a scheme to move donations to the "We Build the Wall" campaign through entities and bank accounts they controlled, the office said. They then took steps to obscure or conceal the payments, including by using fake invoices and sham contracts.
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