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In an indictment made public this Thursday, September 8, Steve Bannon was indicted on charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud in a case related to the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico, announced by Donald Trump in 2016. Bannon , 68, has pleaded not guilty, calling the charges “absurd.” He was released without bail.
Donald Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, was charged Thursday in New York City with financial fraud in a money laundering and embezzlement case related to the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico.
The charges relate to the same facts alleged against him in a previous federal indictment, dismissed after Trump pardoned Bannon before his term ended two years ago.
In August 2020, Bannon and three other men had been charged by federal prosecutors with defrauding donors in a $25 million private fundraiser.
Called “We Build the Wall,” the fundraiser was intended to finance construction of the wall Trump wanted along the country’s southern border, to keep migrants out of the United States. Bannon had pleaded not guilty to the charges before they were dropped.
According to the earlier indictment, as well as this Thursday’s indictment, the former Trump adviser concealed the fact that he; the executive director of the fundraising campaign and a third person, Andrew Badolato, were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of donor money. The CEO was identified in court documents as Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran.
“Stephen Bannon acted as the architect of a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud thousands of donors across the country,” prosecutor Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “Making profit by lying to donors is a crime.”
Trump’s presidential pardon does not affect the new case, as it covers the federal charges but does not preclude state prosecutions.
According to Bannon, the accusations are politically motivated.
On Tuesday, Bannon had claimed in a statement that prosecutor Bragg “has now decided to bring false charges against me, 60 days before the midterm elections,” accusing the Democratic prosecutor of targeting him over his radio show, very popular with Trump supporters.
This latest development comes six weeks after Bannon was convicted by a federal court in Washington of obstructing the investigative powers of Congress.
He had refused to cooperate with the congressional commission investigating the January 6, 2021, assault on Capitol Hill; the unprecedented attack by Donald Trump supporters challenging Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Despite his removal from his position as White House adviser in August 2017, Steve Bannon had remained close to Donald Trump and had even spoken with him the day before the attack on Capitol Hill.
Two months before the mid-term legislative elections and two years before the presidential elections of November 2024 in which Donald Trump plans to run again as head of the Republicans, the political climate in the United States is increasingly tense and the most polarized country.
Trump is the subject of several criminal and civil investigations, for trying to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election and for his role in the violent assault on his supporters on January 6, 2021.
On Saturday, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the former president called Joe Biden “enemy of the state,” in response to his Democratic successor, who last Thursday described him as a “threat to democracy” and to “the soul of USA”.
With AP and AFP
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