2 admit bilking border wall donors

NEW YORK >> In Donald J. Trump's final hours as president in January 2021, he pardoned his onetime chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who faced charges that he had conspired to swindle donors to a private group that promised to build a wall along the Mexican border.

But three men charged with Bannon were not pardoned, and two of them pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

One was Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran from Miramar Beach, Florida, who lost both legs and an arm during his service in Iraq, and who founded the fundraising campaign for the private We Build the Wall project, intended to further one of Trump's signature political initiatives.

In court, Kolfage admitted to the judge, Analisa Torres, that he had conspired to illegally receive money from donations made to the project. Torres noted that he had promised the public that “100%” of the donated money would be used to build the wall.

Kolfage acknowledged that.

“Despite your promise,” Torres said, “you made an agreement with others to keep a large sum of money for yourself.”

“That is correct,” Kolfage repeated.

Building a wall along the country's southwestern border to repel migrants became a rallying cry for Trump throughout his presidency, and the charges against Bannon and his co-defendants suggested they had exploited the issue's popularity among Trump supporters to dupe donors to their project for private gain.

The other defendant who pleaded guilty on Thursday was Andrew Badolato, a venture capitalist from Sarasota, Florida. The fourth, Timothy Shea, of Castle Rock, Colorado, is scheduled for trial May 16.