Steve Bannon and leaders of the 'We Build The Wall' campaign charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in NYC

Greg P. | 9:45 AM on August 20, 2020

Breaking news out of Manhattan:

BREAKING: Steve Bannon has been indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) August 20, 2020

He’s been “charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering”:

Steve Bannon has been "charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering." https://t.co/lDMXUDrmbw

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 20, 2020

Apparently, this is in connection with the “We Build The Wall” online fundraising:

Leaders of ‘We Build The Wall’ online fundraising campaign charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors https://t.co/cH2abWm2Ph pic.twitter.com/NKxfKXkcEX

— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) August 20, 2020

Others associated with the private wall have been indicted, too:

KOLFAGE, BANNON, BADOLATO, and SHEA 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. https://t.co/pxHtK8gTAX

— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) August 20, 2020

From the DOJ:

Starting in approximately December 2018, BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO, and TIMOTHY SHEA, and others, orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors, including donors in the Southern District of New York, in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign ultimately known as “We Build The Wall” that raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States. In particular, to induce donors to donate to the campaign, KOLFAGE repeatedly and falsely assured the public 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” because, as BANNON publicly stated, “we’re a volunteer organization.”

Those representations were false. In truth, KOLFAGE, BANNON, BADOLATO, and SHEA 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. In particular, KOLFAGE covertly took for his personal use more than $350,000 in funds that donors had given to We Build the Wall, while BANNON, through a non-profit organization under his control (“Non-Profit-1”), received over $1 million from We Build the Wall, at least some of which BANNON used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in BANNON’s personal expenses. To conceal the payments to KOLFAGE from We Build the Wall, KOLFAGE, BANNON, BADOLATO, and SHEA devised a scheme to route those payments from We Build the Wall to KOLFAGE indirectly through Non-Profit-1 and a shell company under SHEA’s control, among other avenues. They did so by using fake invoices and sham “vendor” arrangements, among other ways, to ensure, as KOLFAGE noted in a text message to BADOLATO, that his pay arrangement remained “confidential” and kept on a “need to know” basis.