Ex-Trump strategist Bannon indicted
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday on allegations that he and three associates stole from donors seeking to fund a southern border wall.
Hours after his arrest, Bannon pleaded innocent during an appearance in a Manhattan federal court. The organizers of the We Build The Wall group portrayed themselves as eager to help the president build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, as he had promised during the 2016 presidential campaign. They raised more than $25 million from thousands of donors and pledged that 100% of the money would be used for the project.
In a 23-page indictment, prosecutors said Bannon, 66, and another organizer, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, lied when they said they would not take any compensation as part of the campaign. Bannon, prosecutors alleged, received more than $1 million through a nonprofit entity that he controlled, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage while keeping a “substantial
portion” for himself.
Bannon was taken into custody early Thursday morning by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on a 150-foot luxury yacht called Lady May, which was off the coast of Connecticut, authorities said. The boat is owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and is for sale for nearly $28 million.
Working with the Coast Guard, federal postal inspectors and special agents from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan boarded the vessel.
Wengui, according to a law enforcement official, is a vocal, online critic of the Chinese government, though he once was close with that country’s intelligence service. He is now wanted by authorities in Beijing on charges of fraud, blackmail and bribery, the official said. The official, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.
At his hearing, Bannon appeared by video with his hands cuffed in front of him and a white mask covering most of his face. The magistrate judge approved Bannon’s release on $5 million bail, secured by $1.75 million in assets, and ordered him to surrender his travel documentation, and not use private planes or yachts without court permission.
Neither Bannon, nor his spokesperson or attorney responded to requests for comment Thursday. Kolfage did not respond either.
Also arrested Thursday were Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, the owner of an energy drink company called Winning Energy. The company’s cans feature a cartoon superhero image of Trump and claim to contain “12 oz. of liberal tears.” Shea appeared at a brief virtual hearing in Denver.
All four were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Other prominent members of the wall group included former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, its general counsel; Erik Prince, founder of the security firm, Blackwater; former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado; and former major league baseball pitcher Curt Schilling. They were not named in the indictment.
“I feel very badly,” Trump said. “I haven’t been dealing with him for a very long period of time.”
“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,” the president told reporters at the White House.
An immigration plan unveiled by Trump last year included a proposal to allow the public to donate toward his long-promised wall, as the Kolfage group had originally said was its mission before shifting its focus to private construction.
Trump denounced the project publicly, tweeting last month that he “disagreed with doing this very small [tiny] section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads” and claiming “it was only done to make me look bad.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump had “no involvement in this project. President Trump has always felt the Wall must be a government project and that it is far too big and complex to be handled privately,” McEnany said in a statement.
Attorney General William Barr told The Associated Press that he had been made aware of the investigation into Bannon months ago but did not say whether the president had been informed.
A White House official said Trump did not know ahead of time that Bannon was being arrested, and he was told by aides after it happened.
KOLFAGE CLAIMS
According to the indictment, the defendants used fake invoices, another nonprofit and sham vendor arrangements to try to hide their efforts to siphon money. Under the arrangement, Bannon and his co-defendants reportedly paid Kolfage $100,000 upfront and an additional $20,000 monthly, all while claiming that they served as volunteers and that Kolfage was not paid, the indictment said.
The indictment said Kolfage “went so far as to send mass emails to his donors asking them to purchase coffee from his unrelated business, telling donors the coffee company was the only way he ‘keeps his family fed and a roof over their head.’”
Kolfage spent some of the more than $350,000 he received on home renovations, payments toward a boat, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments and credit card debt, according to sources.
Kolfage, 38, of Miramar Beach, Fla., was severely injured in a rocket attack while he was stationed in Baghdad in 2004. According to the We Build the Wall website, he lost both legs and his right arm instantly and was in a coma for three weeks. He later took a civilian role in the Air Force and worked on a veterans advisory committee for then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.
Kolfage’s wife declined to comment.
Originally called We the People Build the Wall, the campaign launched in December 2018 and raised approximately $17 million in its first week. But it soon drew scrutiny, according to the indictment. The crowdfunding site that hosted the campaign suspended it and threatened to return donations unless the money was transferred to a legitimate nonprofit. Bannon reportedly was brought in around that time.
Dustin Stockton, who helped start the campaign and then left the project to work on the upcoming presidential election, said it seemed clear that prosecutors were “attacking political infrastructure that supports President Trump right before the election.” He was not charged in the case.
Benjamin Harnwell, who with Bannon launched an institute in Italy to train future populists, called the indictment “spurious” and evidence that the “forces of darkness” would stop at nothing to destroy Bannon.
BANNON PAST
Bannon led the conservative Breitbart News before being tapped to serve as chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 campaign in its critical final months. He later served as chief strategist during the early days of Trump’s administration.
But Bannon, who clashed with other top advisers, was pushed out after less than a year. And his split with Trump deepened after he was quoted in a 2018 book making critical remarks about some of Trump’s adult children. Bannon apologized and soon stepped down as chairman of Breitbart.
Bannon, who served in the Navy and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and as a Hollywood producer before turning to politics, now hosts a podcast called “War Room,” which began during the president’s impeachment proceedings and has continued during the pandemic.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. was a guest at a symposium hosted by the We Build the Wall group in New Mexico in 2019, praising the organization as “private enterprise at its finest.”
“Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else,” he added, in comments the group highlighted on its website.
Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for Trump Jr., said his only involvement with the group was the 2019 speech and that he had not been previously aware that his comments were featured on the group’s website, nor had he given his permission.
“His previous praise of the group was based on what he was led to believe about their supposed intention to help build the wall on our southern border, and if he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions,” she said.
In January 2019, Kobach told The New York Times that he had described the organization to Trump in a personal phone call and that Trump had given it his blessing.
In a statement, an attorney for Prince said Prince joined the group’s advisory board because he was a believer in its mission to build a wall on the southern border. “He had nothing to do with the conduct alleged in today’s indictment, was never contacted in connection with any investigation and doesn’t know anything about it,” attorney Matthew L. Schwartz said.
Kobach, Tancredo and Schilling could not be reached for comment.
“Sometimes people can exceed your expectations and other times they end up pretty much exactly where you anticipated,” said Josh Holmes, a top adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He also posted a meme on Twitter of McConnell, R-Ky., grinning.
Information for this article was contributed by Larry Neumeister, Colleen Long, Jill Colvin, Jennifer Peltz, Nomaan Merchant, Cedar Attanasio, Dave Collins, Mike Balsamo, Nicole Winfield and Michael Biesecker of The Associated Press; by Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, Rosalind S. Helderman, Shayna Jacobs, Alice Crites, Alex Horton, Ellen Nakashima and Felicia Sonmez of The Washington Post; and by Alan Feuer, William K. Rashbaum and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.