Bannon Cops a Plea, is Harshly Sentenced In Build the Wall Charitable Fraud
A little more than two years ago, when there was still at least a semblance of justice in America, the Manhattan District Attorney got an indictment against Stephen Bannon and “We Build the Wall, Inc.” “We Build the Wall” started off as a GoFundMe and then eventually evolved into a (c)(4). It took in more than $25 million in donations. I didn’t find any evidence that it still exists, but who knows. There’s a sucker born every minute so maybe it does. Here is a summary of what happened next from Wikipedia:
We Build the Wall is an organization that solicited donations to build private sections of the wall along the Mexico–U.S. border. It started as a GoFundMe campaign by United States Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage in December 2018. Kolfage announced the formation of a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization in January 2019. By mid-2020, over $25 million had been raised and a 3-mile (4.8 km) section of fence had been built. The organization was involved in the construction of walls along the border in Sunland Park, New Mexico and Mission, Texas.
Its advisory board included politicians and activists with a hard-line stance on illegal immigration, including former secretary of state of Kansas Kris Kobach; former congressman Tom Tancredo; Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince; former Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke; and former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, who is chairman of the board.
In August 2020, Brian Kolfage, Steve Bannon, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea were charged with a scheme to divert over a million dollars from We Fund the Wall, of which at least $350,000 illegally went to Kolfage for personal use. The men faced federal felony charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Kolfage and Badolato pled guilty and were sentenced. After Shea’s first trial ended in a hung jury, he was convicted in October 2022 and received a 63-month sentence in July 2023. Bannon was pardoned of federal charges by then-President Trump, but he was indicted in September 2022 on state charges in New York to which he pleaded guilty on February 11, 2025.
A lonely 3-mile steel wall is all that resulted from Bannon’s efforts. The rest of the $25 million donations went into the organizers’ pockets. Like I said, a sucker is born every minute. Bannon’s co-conspirators were all convicted and one, Brian Kolfage, is still serving a 4 year federal prison sentence in Minnesota. Poor dumb slob. President Trump pardoned Bannon — and only Bannon — before he could be convicted for federal charges, but the Manhattan DA pushed ahead with the state charges.
Last week, Bannon finally got his comeuppance:
Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser to President Trump, pleaded guilty Tuesday in a New York state criminal case related to a fundraising scheme that defrauded donors to a border-wall nonprofit. Bannon, the host of “War Room,” a popular show with Trump supporters, entered a guilty plea to one count of a scheme to defraud in the first degree. In exchange, prosecutors said he would receive a three-year conditional discharge, allowing him to avoid prison time. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that under the terms of the plea, Bannon is barred from serving as an officer or director of charities with assets in New York. “This resolution achieves our primary goal: to protect New York’s charities and New Yorkers’ charitable giving from fraud,” Bragg said.
A state prosecutor said in court Tuesday that Bannon won’t have to pay restitution to donors because they had been made whole by forfeiture actions in the federal case.
Bannon was told in no uncertain terms to “get out of here and don’t come back!” That’ll teach him.
darryll k. jones