Steve Bannon Pleads Guilty To Wire Fraud In Fake Scheme To Privately Build Border Wall

Former White House aide Steve Bannon has pled guilty to the wire fraud charges related to a fake border wall he built privately back in 2020.

On August 20, 2020, Bannon was arrested and charged with fraud for using funds provided by donors to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border for personal expenses.

According to a Justice Department statement, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged him with wire fraud, as well as conspiracy against the U.S. government and money laundering. 

Prosecutors alleged that Bannon spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of donor funds on personal expenses. The embezzled funds, which added up to almost $1 million, were accrued within several months.

At the time of his arrest, the former White House aide’s “Build the Wall” program collected more than $25 million from donors.

On Jan. 20, 2021, Donald Trump pardoned Bannon of federal charges in the last few hours of his first term as president.

Bannon was then indicted in 2022 in New York on state charges.

In court on Tuesday, Bannon pleaded guilty to one state felony count of a scheme to defraud in the first degree and was sentenced to a three-year conditional discharge.

He is not going to serve any time in prison, nor will he need to pay any restitution under the deal.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Levinson stated that there is no restitution because Bannon’s co-defendants in a related federal case previously returned millions of dollars to victims.

As part of his three-year conditional discharge, Bannon is forbidden from serving as an officer or director of any charitable organizations or nonprofits with assets in New York or accessing “We Build the Wall” donor names.

He is also not allowed to receive or hold assets for any charitable organizations. Additionally, he cannot be arrested for the next three years.

If he infringes upon the terms of the deal, he could face between one to four years in prison.

Bannon spoke for a short time in the courtroom to answer Judge April Newbauer‘s questions.

Newbauer asked him if he participated in the scheme to which he was pleading guilty.

“Yes, your honor,” he stated in response.

After the hearing, Bannon called for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch criminal investigations into the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).

“I’m calling on right now the Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin an immediate criminal investigation into Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, all of it for what they did to President Trump,” the former aide demanded. “The existential threat to his administration is the queen of lawfare Letitia James.”

After the hearing, Bragg stated that “this resolution achieves our primary goal: to protect New York’s charities and New Yorkers’ charitable giving from fraud.”

“New York has an important interest in rooting out fraud in our markets, our corporations, and our charities, and we will continue to do just that,” he added.

Bannon’s trial was set to begin on March 4.