allegations of fraud
Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon before new charges: “They are following us all”
© Alex Brandon/AP/DPA
He founded the right-wing medium Breitbart News and was considered the strategist behind Donald Trump: Steve Bannon. The ex-president fired the 68-year-old, but pardoned him in a corruption case. Now Bannon faces a retrial.
When Donald Trump fired his former campaign manager and chief strategist Steve Bannon in 2017, just six months after taking office, after a disagreement, the 68-year-old suddenly seemed to be gone. But the contact between the two men remained and Bannon continued to work on right-wing populist movements disintegrating Western democracies – also in Europe, where in March 2018 he met with AfD politicians Alice Weidel and Beatrix von Storch as well as the French Marine Le Pen of the Front National (now the Rassemblement National) met. Bannon also continued to campaign for Trump and was in contact with the then-President the day before the Capitol was stormed in January 2021. In his podcast, Bannon predicted: “All the hell is going to break loose tomorrow “).
So it came as no surprise that Steve Bannon was among the people Donald Trump pardoned on the last day of his term. This eliminated a charge of conspiracy to wire fraud and money laundering related to donations to build a wall on the US-Mexico southern border. Bannon is scheduled to act as an advisor to the fundraising organization We build the Wall (“We are building the wall”) embezzled money with accomplices. But the case is apparently catching up with the right-wing populist mastermind again. According to a report in the “New York Times” (NYT), the Manhattan prosecutor’s office had picked him up with their own investigations – since a president can only pardon federal crimes, they say, but not state crimes.
New York prosecutors filed charges later Thursday. Bannon and the organization “We Build the Wall” are accused of fraud, the authority said at a press conference. The organization has collected more than $15 million in donations for the wall planned by ex-President Trump on the US-Mexico border – but contrary to what has been publicly claimed, the head of the organization paid a salary of $250,000 that was hidden through money laundering.
Bannon turned himself in to authorities that morning.
Steve Bannon laments charges just before midterms
It has not yet been officially confirmed that, as suspected, the allegations of fraud in connection with the Wall donations are again at stake. Despite this, Steve Bannon has already railed that the charges are definitely “false”. “They’re following us all,” the NYT quoted him as saying. In doing so, he suggested that the new proceedings were not objective, but politically motivated.
The Manhattan District Attorney has “now decided to bring false charges against me 60 days before the midterm elections,” Bannon said in a statement quoted by several American media outlets. The prosecutor, a Democrat, only targeted him because he – Bannon – and his radio show were popular with Republican Trump supporters. In August 2020, New York’s Southern District judiciary did exactly the same thing “to try to get me out of the election,” Bannon recalled his arrest a few months before Trump’s failed re-election. That the co-founder of the right-wing populist media portal beard continues to see himself as a key political figure is evident in the lines.
“It didn’t work then”
That Bannon will once again address the allegations of fraud related to the fundraisers for We build the Wall is faced with is because the allegations in the first case were dropped by the pardon. The 68-year-old has always called himself innocent in the matter. Two of his alleged accomplices pleaded guilty in April, and their conviction was recently postponed until December. The trial of a third co-defendant fell through because the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.
“It didn’t work then,” Bannon recalled of his 2020 arrest, “it certainly won’t work now either.” Nothing can be seen in his case other than a politicization of the criminal justice system.
Sources: New York Times; political; News agencies AFP, DPA
Note: This article has been updated to reflect the charge.