NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Bannon ‘s border wall fundraising trial was postponed to February as prosecutors disclosed Monday that the former Trump White House strategist himself once suggested the nonprofit venture was “a scam.”
Bannon — who recently finished serving federal prison time for a contempt of Congress conviction — had been due to go on trial next month on state charges related to the defunct “We Build The Wall” campaign. He has pleaded not guilty.
Launched in 2018, the fundraiser rapidly raised more than $20 million and privately built a few miles (kilometers) of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. But it soon ran into trouble with the International Boundary and Water Commission, came under federal investigation and drew criticism from then-President Donald Trump, the Republican whose policy the charity was founded to support.
Early on in the campaign, Bannon pooh-poohed it, prosecutors said at a court hearing Monday.
“Isn’t this a scam? You can’t build the wall for this much money,” Bannon wrote in an email, according to prosecutor Jeffrey Levinson. He said Bannon went on to chastise the effort’s organizers for soliciting people’s hard-earned money to pursue what he saw as an implausible plan.
Yet Bannon changed his mind and got involved with WeBuildTheWall Inc. because he saw an opportunity to advance and make money for his own, separate not-for-profit group, Levinson said.
Bannon, who had served as Trump’s 2016 campaign CEO and White House adviser, chaired the wall charity’s advisory board.
Bannon was not in court for Monday’s hearing but listened in virtually. He did not speak except to say, “yes, ma’am” when asked whether he understood he must be in court when jury selection starts Feb. 25. Prosecutors asked Monday for an anonymous jury, but no decision has been made.
Bannon, who turns 71 next week, faces state charges including conspiracy and money laundering and has called them “nonsense.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, brought the charges after Trump pardoned Bannon in a similar federal prosecution that was in its early stages.
Until Monday, jury selection was due to start Dec. 9.
The case revolves around money paid to Brian Kolfage, a disabled military veteran who launched the campaign. He promised the public that he would not “take a penny of compensation” from the money poured in from 325,000 donors.
But, as Kolfage eventually admitted in a federal case that sent him to prison, he pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars. About $140,000 of his secret salary was funneled through Bannon’s own organization, Citizens of the American Republic, or COAR, prosecutors say.
And COAR got and kept hundreds of thousands of dollars more from WeBuildTheWall during a period when Bannon’s group was haggling with credit card company American Express over paying down a $612,000 balance, Levinson told the judge Monday.
“How much cash do we have??? We need more cash from the wall,” he quoted Bannon as writing to one of his associates in February 2019.
Prosecutors don’t claim Bannon stole the money from the wall charity or from his own. But they say the transactions help explain his motive to participate in the alleged scheme.
“Helping to pay Kolfage’s salary ultimately helped the defendant personally,” Levinson said.
Bannon’s lawyers say COAR was being paid for work performed.
“He was entitled to the money. COAR was entitled to the money,” and they were free to spend it on a credit card bill or “to give some of it” to Kolfage, defense lawyer John Carman said.
He argued that the credit card matter was irrelevant, saying prosecutors were just trying to make Bannon look shady to jurors.
“They’ll think, ‘What a big AmEx bill. I wonder whether those are legitimate COAR expenses?’” Carman said.
“Not necessarily in this county,” Manhattan Judge April Newbauer countered, “but we’ll see.”
She ruled prosecutors can present the evidence at trial. Defense lawyers have said they now need a financial expert to address it.
With both sides’ witness lists now potentially expanding for various reasons, Newbauer pushed the trial back to Feb. 25 but warned it would not be bumped again.
Bannon went to prison for snubbing a congressional subpoena in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack investigation. Bannon, who called himself a “political prisoner,” is appealing his conviction.
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