Former Trump senior adviser is indicted in New York after being pardoned during president’s last day in office in a federal case involving similar conduct
Steve Bannon, a former senior Trump adviser, was indicted in New York on charges of money laundering and other crimes in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud donors to a border-wall nonprofit.
Mr. Bannon, 68 years old, surrendered Thursday to law-enforcement officials at the Manhattan district attorney’s office in lower Manhattan around 9 a.m. The indictment charged both Mr. Bannon and We Build the Wall, a crowdfunding campaign that backed an effort to build a wall along the southern U.S. border, with money laundering, conspiracy and fraud.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that Mr. Bannon had acted as the architect of a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud thousands of donors across the U.S.—and hundreds in New York.
“We are here to say today in one voice that in Manhattan and New York, you will be held accountable for defrauding donors,” Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, said at a news conference.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose office also participated in the investigation, said Mr. Bannon “lied to his donors to enrich himself and his friends.”
Mr. Bannon, through one of his lawyers, entered a not guilty plea at his arraignment Thursday afternoon. He was released after his appearance but a judge ordered him to surrender his passport.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Bannon and his lawyer David Schoen said the charges were politically motivated and timed to the coming midterm elections.
Mr. Schoen called the indictment a “carbon copy” of the 2020 federal fraud case against Mr. Bannon that involved similar conduct related to building a border wall, which was one of former President Donald Trump’s signature promises. Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Bannon in the federal case on his last day in office.
“The theory of prosecution appears to now focus on Mr. Bannon without any new facts in the case,” Mr. Schoen said.
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The New York indictment accuses Mr. Bannon of conspiring to misrepresent to donors that Brian Kolfage, the president and chief executive of We Build the Wall, wouldn’t receive a salary from the campaign. Mr. Kolfage is referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment.
Mr. Bannon and another unindicted co-conspirator discussed in text messages in 2018 and 2019 that Mr. Kolfage’s promise of not accepting a salary would help in fundraising, according to the indictment.
In reality, Mr. Kolfage received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation from We Build the Wall through concealed payments, prosecutors alleged. We Build the Wall transferred funds to third-party entities, including one controlled by Mr. Bannon, which in turn used a portion of the money to pay to Mr. Kolfage, they alleged.
In the related federal case, the Justice Department charged Messrs. Bannon and Kolfage and two other men with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors.
Mr. Kolfage pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in that case. His lawyer didn’t have any immediate comment.
Mr. Bannon is the third person charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office under state law while also being pardoned by Mr. Trump for similar alleged federal offenses. In 2019, Manhattan prosecutors charged former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort with state residential mortgage fraud. A state judge tossed the case. Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Manafort for federal crimes in 2020.
In 2021, Manhattan prosecutors charged former Trump ally Ken Kurson with cybercrimes, and he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors earlier this year. In 2020, Brooklyn federal prosecutors had charged Mr. Kurson with cyberstalking three people, and Mr. Trump later pardoned him.
Separate from the New York case, Mr. Bannon is awaiting an Oct. 21 sentencing on contempt of Congress charges.
In a July 22 verdict, a federal jury in Washington said Mr. Bannon unlawfully defied a subpoena issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.