Tag Archives: Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon arrested on fraud charges linked to border wall

By Sarah N. Lynch and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Steve Bannon, an architect of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory, has been charged with defrauding Trump supporters in a campaign to help build the president’s signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, prosecutors said on Thursday.

As a top adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign who later served as White House chief strategist, Bannon helped articulate the right-wing populism and fierce opposition to immigration that have been hallmarks of Trump’s 3-1/2 years in office. Trump fired Bannon from his White House post in August 2017.

Bannon, 66, was among four people arrested on Thursday and charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They each face up to 40 years in prison.

Bannon was arrested aboard a 150-foot-long (45-meter-long) yacht in Connecticut, according to a law enforcement source.

Prosecutors accused the defendants of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors through a $25 million crowdfunding campaign called “We Build the Wall,” the Justice Department said. Prosecutors said Bannon received more than $1 million of that money through an unnamed nonprofit organization.

Bannon heads a nonprofit organization called Citizens of the American Public that received more than $4.4 million in contributions in 2018, government filings show.

The famously disheveled entrepreneur headed the right-wing Breitbart News before joining Trump’s campaign. Bannon later returned to that job, but quit after angering Trump. He has since promoted a variety of right-wing causes and candidates in the United States and abroad.

Trump told reporters at the White House that he feels “very badly” about Bannon’s charges but sought to distance himself from Bannon and the alleged scheme at the center of the case.

“I do think it’s a sad event,” Trump said. “I haven’t dealt with him at all now for years, literally years.”

Bannon represents the latest close Trump associate to face criminal charges, a list that also includes former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates. Trump last month commuted Stone’s prison sentence, using his power of executive clemency to benefit a political ally.

A lawyer for Bannon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has struggled to build his signature border wall – a key 2016 campaign promise – in the face of court challenges, logistical hurdles and opposition from congressional Democrats. His administration has completed 30 new miles (48 km) of border fencing and replaced another 240 miles (386 km) of barriers along the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border, government figures show.

More than 330,000 supporters have donated to private fund-raisers and profiteers who have promised to build the wall on their own, according to a 2019 Reuters investigation.

The group built two wall sections on private land in New Mexico and Texas, drawing some fire from local residents who said proper permits were not obtained. The wall section in Texas has suffered from erosion problems, according to a report last month.

“I know nothing about the project other than … when I read about it, I didn’t like it. I said, ‘This is for government, this isn’t for private people,’ and it sounded to me like showboating,” Trump told reporters.

The Republican president also said he did not know the three others charged along with Bannon and did not believe he had ever met them.

BIDEN CAMPAIGN BLASTS TRUMP

The indictment comes as Trump trails in opinion polls behind Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

Biden’s campaign said the charges underscore that corruption surrounds Trump.

“He has consistently used his office to enrich himself, his family and his cronies, so is it really any surprise that yet another one of the grifters he surrounded himself with and placed in the highest levels of government was just indicted?” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield asked on a conference call with reporters.

The charges are being handled by the same federal office that prosecuted Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. The office’s top prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman, was abruptly ousted by Attorney General William Barr earlier this year.

Also charged on Thursday were Brian Kolfage, 38, Andrew Badolato, 56, and Timothy Shea, 49, who prosecutors said were involved in the effort.

Kolfage took $350,000 for his personal use, the indictment said. A triple-amputee U.S. Air Force veteran, Kolfage formerly ran a company that made millions of dollars running right-wing media websites. He first pledged to send donations to the U.S. government when he launched the effort in December 2018, but then said he would use the money to hire private contractors and build the wall on their own.

More recently, Kolfage started a business to sell protective face masks to protect against the novel coronavirus. His lawyer declined comment.

The donors thought the money would go toward helping to build a border wall, prosecutors said. But Kolfage, whom they described as the public face and founder of the operation, received thousands of dollars that he used to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Trump fired Bannon after the adviser publicly disagreed with the administration’s North Korea policy. Trump later said Bannon had “lost his mind.”

Board members of We Build the Wall include Erik Prince, a former government contractor and brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

Kolfage appeared in federal court in Florida on Thursday. Bannon is set to appear in federal court in Manhattan. The other two defendants are due to appear in courts in Florida and Colorado.

(Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe, Jeff Mason, Mark Hosenball, Joseph Tanfani, Trevor Hunnicutt and Ted Hesson; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

Trump drops Steve Bannon from National Security Council

White House Senior Advisor Steve Bannon. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Steve Holland and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump removed his chief strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council on Wednesday, reversing his controversial decision early this year to give a political adviser an unprecedented role in security discussions.

Trump’s overhaul of the NSC, confirmed by a White House official, also elevated General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence who heads all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. The official said the change moves the NSC “back to its core function of what it’s supposed to do.”

It also appears to mark a victory for national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who had told some national security experts he felt he was in a “battle to the death” with Bannon and others on the White House staff.

Vice President Mike Pence said Bannon would continue to play an important role in policy and played down the shake-up as routine.

“This is just a natural evolution to ensure the National Security Council is organized in a way that best serves the president in resolving and making those difficult decisions,” Pence said on Fox News.

Bannon said in a statement he had succeeded in returning the NSC back to its traditional role of coordinating foreign policy rather than running it. He cited President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, for why he advocated a change.

“Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration so I was put on NSC to ensure it was ‘de-operationalized.’ General McMaster has NSC back to its proper function,” he said.

Trump’s White House team has grappled with infighting and intrigue that has hobbled his young presidency. In recent days, several other senior U.S. foreign policy and national security officials have said the mechanisms for shaping the Trump administration’s response to pressing challenges such as Syria, North Korea and Iran still were not in place.

Critics of Bannon’s role on the NSC said it gave too much weight in decision-making to someone who lacked foreign policy expertise.

Bannon, who was chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign in the months leading to his election in November, in some respects represents Trump’s “America First” nationalistic voice, helping fuel his anti-Washington fervor and pushing for the president to part ways at times with mainstream Republicans.

Before joining the Trump administration, Bannon headed Breitbart News, a right-wing website.

U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, called the shift in the NSC a positive step that will help McMaster “gain control over a body that was being politicized by Bannon’s involvement.”

“As the administration’s policy over North Korea, China, Russia and Syria continues to drift, we can only hope this shake-up brings some level of strategic vision to the body,” he said.

SOURCE: STILL INFLUENTIAL

Bannon’s removal from the NSC was a potential setback for his sphere of influence in the Trump White House, where he has a voice in most major decisions. But a Trump confidant said Bannon remained as influential as ever.

“He is still involved in everything and still has the full confidence of the president but to be fair he can only do so much stuff,” the confidant said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The White House official said Bannon was no longer needed on the NSC after the departure of Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Flynn was forced to resign on Feb. 13 over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, prior to Trump taking office on Jan. 20.

The official said Bannon had been placed on the NSC originally as a check on Flynn and had only attended one of the NSC’s regular meetings.

The official dismissed questions about a power struggle between Bannon and McMaster, saying they shared the same world view.

However, two current national security officials rejected the White House explanation, noting that two months have passed since Flynn’s departure.

McMaster, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also has dueled with Bannon and others over direct access to Trump; the future of deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, a former Fox News commentator; intelligence director Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a Flynn appointee; and other staffing decisions.

Trump is preparing for his first face-to-face meeting on Thursday and Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping with the threat of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs a key component of their talks.

Bannon’s seat on the NSC’s “principals’ committee,” a group that includes the secretaries of state, defense and other ranking aides, was taken by Rick Perry, who as energy secretary is charged with overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Tom Brown, Bill Trott and Michael Perry)