Bannon’s arrest is the latest in a long line of criminal charges involving Trump confidants. This level of criminality surrounding a president is unparalleled.
In many ways it sounds like the plot of a cheap crime novel. The evil mastermind devises a scheme to fleece the unsuspecting public of millions of dollars. He lies to the public repeatedly about how the money they send him is going to be used. He hides the payments that he makes to himself and his co-conspirators behind a series of false invoices and fictitious nonprofit companies. In the end, he’s arrested while sitting on a boat owned by a mysterious exiled Chinese businessman.
But this isn’t the stuff of fiction. It’s the outline of the allegations against Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chief, and his alleged co-conspirators. Together, the defendants are said to have created a GoFundMe site, “We Build The Wall,” that promised to collect money from Americans and use it to help build President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall on the southern border with Mexico.
To reassure their donors, Bannon and Brian Kolfage, one of the indicted co-conspirators, repeatedly told the public that all of the money would go “directly to the wall!!! Not anyone’s pocket,” and that they would “take $0” from the funds for themselves. Bannon, Kolfage and their two co-defendants allegedly approved these statements (as the indictment puts it) “precisely because they understood and expected that donors would rely upon these representations, which were intended to maximize the fundraising potential of We Build The Wall.” Continue reading.
