Steve Bannon Arrested and Charged With Fraud Over Border Wall Campaign

By Victoria Bekiempis, Guardian UK

20 August 20

Bannon and three others allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with ‘We Build the Wall’

ormer Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in skimming donations from “We Build the Wall”, an online fundraising campaign aimed at gathering funds to construct the president’s controversial border wall, officials said.

Using a non-profit organization that he controlled, Bannon “received over $1m from We Build the Wall, at least some of which Bannon used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in [his] personal expenses”, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said.

Three other men, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, were also arrested in this alleged scheme to defraud the non-profit, which authorities said raised more than $25m.

The charges were contained in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Bannon and three others “orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors” in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $25m to build a wall along the southern border of the United States.

A phone at the office of Bannon’s lawyer went unanswered Thursday morning. A spokeswoman for Bannon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Department of Justice’s southern district of New York (SDNY) says that Bannon, and the others were arrested for leading the We Build The Wall online fundraising campaign that defrauded its many donors.

In a statement, acting US attorney Audrey Strauss said that the fund capitalized on donors’ interest in building a border wall while instead funneling millions of dollars to fund the “lavish lifestyle” of “We Build The Wall” founder and public face Brian Kolfage.

Philip Bartlett, inspector in charge, said: “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 added: “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.”

The We Build The Wall campaign started in 2018 as a GoFundMe by Kolfage, a military veteran, who has described some people crossing the southern border without documents as terrorists and drug traffickers and accused border wall critics as being cartel collaborators. The campaign created a video posted on YouTube of construction of metal barricades to attract anti-immigrant donors to the campaign.

By spring 2019, the group had raised $22m out of its $1bn goal.

Last year, the campaign was seen by the Guardian building a private border wall in south Texas despite a court injunction that ordered the work to be suspended.

Prosecutors alleged that Kolfage “repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would ‘not take a penny in salary or compensation’ and that ‘100% of the funds raised … will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose’”.

In a statement, prosecutors pointed out that Bannon publicly proclaimed: “We’re a volunteer organization.”

Kolfage, meanwhile, “covertly took for his personal use more than $350,000 in funds that donors had given to We Build the Wall”. To hide this, the men “devised a scheme” to direct money siphoned from We Build the Wall to Kolfage through a non-profit and a shell company that Shea controlled, using bogus invoices and “sham” vendor agreements.

The men are facing one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each count has a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.