Ex-Trump Advisor Steve Bannon Charged With Fraud by Federal Prosecutors

Steve Bannon, who previously served as White House Chief Strategist for Trump and executive chair for Breitbart, has been taken into custody and charged with defrauding those who donated to an online fundraiser dubbed “We Build the Wall.”

The campaign ultimately raised more than $25 million, despite “repeatedly and falsely” claiming to the public that Brian Kolfage—alongside whom Bannon and others have been alleged to have orchestrated the scheme—did not take a salary. Bannon, notably, also publicly referred to the effort as a “volunteer organization” despite that apparently not being the case at all.

“As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, 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,” Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on Thursday.

Philip R. Bartlett, Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), added that the “true use” of the money given to the border wall scheme was “misrepresented” to donors and the general public. 

“As alleged, not only did they lie to donors, they schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth,” Bartlett said. “This case should serve as a warning to other fraudsters that no one is above the law, not even a disabled war veteran or a millionaire political strategist.”