Bannon calls his arrest a 'political hit job' aimed at intimidating Trump wall supporters
Category: News & Politics
Via: tessylo • 4 years ago • 24 commentsBy: Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer Yahoo News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Politics
Bannon calls his arrest a 'political hit job' aimed at intimidating Trump wall supporters
A day after his arrest on federal fraud charges related to a crowdfunding campaign to build a private border fence, former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon on Friday dismissed the case as a “total political hit job” engineered to “intimidate” supporters of President Trump’s promise to build a wall along the United States border with Mexico.
Bannon, who pleaded not guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was freed on $5 million bond and is back in Washington, D.C., delivering his daily “War Room” radio show and podcast .
“All of these charges are nonsense,” Bannon said. “This was to stop and intimidate people that want to talk about the wall. This was to stop and intimidate people that have President Trump’s back on building the wall.”
Stephen Bannon speaks with reporters on Thursday after pleading not guilty to federal charges that he ripped off donors to an online fundraising campaign to build a southern border wall. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP)
Bannon and three others — Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea — were charged with defrauding donors to their crowdfunding We Build the Wall campaign, which raised $25 million to privately supplement Trump’s plan to build a fence along the southern border.
Kolfage, a disabled Air Force veteran, repeatedly assured donors 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” to build a border wall.
But prosecutors allege that all four men “received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds from We Build the Wall, which they each used in a manner inconsistent with the organization’s public representations.”
Specifically, the 24-page indictment unsealed Thursday alleges that Kolfage “covertly took for his personal use more than $350,000 in funds that donors had given to We Build the Wall” to fund his “lavish lifestyle,” while Bannon received over $1 million through another unnamed nonprofit under his control, “at least some of which” was used to pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars in his personal expenses.
Bannon, 66, was arrested on a 150-foot yacht belonging to fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui off the coast of Connecticut.
“This fiasco yesterday was to intimidate anybody that wants to talk about American sovereignty and wants to talk about the wall,” Bannon said on the podcast. “We’re never going to stop talking about it and fighting for it.”
Bannon invoked his reputation as a “honey badger,” a weasel-like animal native to Africa and Asia known for its ferocity.
“Everybody knows I love a fight,” he said. “I’m in this for the long haul. I’m in this for the fight.”
A courtroom sketch shows Bannon, handcuffed and wearing a mask, as he listens during his arraignment on Thursday inside Federal District Court in Manhattan. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)
Speaking to reporters at the White House Thursday, Trump said he felt “very badly” for Bannon but knew “nothing about” the We Build the Wall project.
“When I read about it, I didn’t like it,” Trump said. “This is for government. This isn’t for private people. And it sounded, to me, like showboating.”
Bannon said he agreed.
“President Trump’s right, building the wall is a government function,” he said. “We’ve never questioned that at all.”
But he also suggested that the government can’t build it alone.
“Look how much trouble President Trump has had, what he’s had to fight against,” Bannon said. “And not just progressive Democrats but people in his own party.”
Bannon, who served as Trump’s top campaign adviser, lasted just seven months in the White House as the administration’s chief strategist.
He resigned in August 2017, less than a week after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where neo-Nazis clashed with counterprotesters.
Bannon — who ran the Breitbart website and once called it a “platform for the alt-right” — reportedly advised Trump on his controversial response to the protests , when the president said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
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Speaking to reporters at the White House Thursday, Trump said he felt “very badly” for Bannon but knew “nothing about” the We Build the Wall project.
“When I read about it, I didn’t like it,” Trump said. “This is for government. This isn’t for private people. And it sounded, to me, like showboating.”
tRump pardon?
My Aunt FAnny! He knew al about it. He's trying to save face
Donnie Jr. was quite vocal about his support of the ''private wall''.
It wouldn't surprise me if some of that money landed in Jr's pocket
A "weasel-like animal" describes Bannon perfectly.
They would not have indited this mucous plug without the paper trail to back up the warrant(s). He was too stupid to funnel the money to Switzerland where no one can access or freeze the account.
He'll get his day in court and if shown to be a political hit job he'll be free to fleece other idiots out of money. If not I hope he goes to jail for many years.
I hope he ends up spending every dime he has fighting it and ends up broke before he has to report to prison.
Are the people that listen to him really stupid enough to think it is some Liberal conspiracy against a stupid wall....
No asshole, it is about you misappropriating funds for your own personal gain.
He is going to have the opportunity to use that as his defense.
If the feds have the paper/money trail he's going to do some hard time which will be richly deserved.
No asswipe, you broke the law and got caught.
"misappropriating funds for your own personal gain"
That's about the long and short of it - everyone involved with tRump in an way, including tRump
And the winner of Trumps crime family pageant is...
MissAppropriation!!!
Wow.... you can get lipstick on a pig!
By making such statements he's merely hoping to further bamboozle the same gullible Trump supporters he suckered into sending him money.
Those same suckers will probably send the scumbag more money for his legal fund.
I see a Go Fund Me for his legal fees....
They did it for the greedy folks over at the NRA...... sure they'll do it for Bannon.
He is delusional. The Feds don't bother indicting someone unless they have hard evidence that a crime was committed.
He may have a chance at that insanity plea.....
Why because of his personal hygiene habits?
I really want somebody to give this guy a GI shower
You mean his lack of personal hygiene habits?
With a pressure washer and a few gallons of high grade disinfectant.
And then shave his chin with a dull straight edge