Bannon surrenders, charged with money laundering in wall-building scheme
Former President Donald Trump's longtime ally Steve Bannon surrendered Thursday to face charges in New York alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall on the U.S. southern border — a state-level reboot of a federal case that ended with a presidential pardon last year.
Bannon, 68, is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon on charges including money laundering, conspiracy and fraud related to the "We Build the Wall" campaign. He is the second person pardoned by Trump and later charged by the Manhattan district attorney's office for the same alleged conduct.
Manhattan prosecutors say that while Bannon promised all donations would go to building the wall, he was involved in transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to third-party entities and used them to funneled payments to two other people involved in the scheme.
The indictment didn't identify those people by name, but the details match those of Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in April.
"It is a crime to turn a profit by lying to donors, and in New York, you will be held accountable," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
Bannon's New York charges stem from the same alleged conduct as an attempted federal prosecution that ended abruptly, before trial, when Trump pardoned Bannon on his last day in office. Manhattan prosecutors also charged WeBuildTheWall, Inc., the nonprofit entity that Bannon and his former co-defendants used to solicit donations.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses. Last year, the Manhattan district attorney's office charged Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, with cyberstalking months after Trump pardoned him in a similar federal case.