Sloppy Steve Bannon Arrested and Charged with Fraud for Bilking Trump Supporters out of $25 Million for ‘We Build the Wall’ Campaign

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Will the Right Wing Militia Let Him Get Away With It? –

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Steve Bannon of Breitbart News speaks on behalf of Judge Roy Moore at Oak Hollow Farm in Fairhope, Alabama, with one week to go in U.S Senate race, Dec. 5, 2017: Photo by Glynn Wilson

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson

It was December 6, 2017, and we were breaking news from Mobile, Alabama, when we found out tea party hero Steve Bannon was coming to Fairhope across the bay to campaign for the Ten Commandments judge himself, Roy Moore. Meanwhile Doug Jones was in Birmingham, taking off the gloves in this special election for the United States Senate.

There was only one week to go, and the polls were close, although it appeared the Birmingham Democrat was pulling ahead after the Roy Moore sex scandal had exploded all over the national news and on every television channel, late night talk show and the Facebook and Twitter news feeds.

Here at the New American Journal, we literally felt like we were the direct nemesis of Bannon who took on the fake news at Breitbart News — the conservative news outlet Bannon ran before and after he was fired from the Trump White House — and beat him like a drum. For all the people not following us then, I am the one who broke the story about Roy Moore being banned from the Gadsden Mall.

Our Coverage: Roy Moore Meets Steve Bannon

The Final Breach of Judge Roy Moore is At Hand

By now everyone has surely heard about Bannon’s arrest this week by postal inspectors while sipping coffee and reading a book on a $35 million, 150-foot yacht owned by fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. It was the Lady May, in Long Island Sound. No word on whether they checked for a large packet of cocaine in the hold below. That wasn’t in the indictment. But they did seize his cell phone, which could contain a wealth of damning evidence, including proof of his recent contacts with the president.

NYT: Steve Bannon Is Charged With Fraud in We Build the Wall Campaign

Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York and accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering for bilking donors out of $25 million for the “We Build the Wall” campaign and shifting the money through fake non-profits and dummy corporations so they could keep living their high-flying lifestyle, along with Brian Kolfage, a 38-year-old Air Force veteran and triple amputee from Miramar Beach, Fla.; Andrew Badolato, 56, a venture capitalist from Sarasota, Fla.; and Timothy Shea, 49, of Castle Rock, Colo.

What you may or may not have seen is a crass video on Twitter showing Bannon joking about bilking the people out of the money. He surely must think all the Trump supporters are total rubes who fell for the “build the wall” campaign and donated $25 million to the lost cause.

Will they lay down on the floor and keep taking it up the rear-end from these frauds like the rubes in Mark Twain’s novels?

If I was in their shoes, I would be loading the Ak-47 and coming for his ass. But I suspect these racist American Nazi’s will just shrug and say it’s politics as usual, and keep voting for Trump and send Bannon some more money, as long as they stand with them against Black Lives Matter.

At a brief arraignment on Thursday in New York, Bannon pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

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Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, leaving Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon: Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

Later, he emerged from jail on $5 million bail bond all tanned with his long, unruly COVID hair flying in the wind, smiling as if he knew there was a presidential pardon and get out of jail free card waiting on him in the White House safe, and uttered a Trumpism: “This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall.”

Right.

Trump reacted to the news by lying as usual, claiming he knew nothing about it, even though his family and half his staff endorsed it, some in person.



Meanwhile back in Alabama, a week after meeting and photographing Bannon and Moore together in a barn with no food or drinks, not even a bottle of water for the people and the press (some kind of GOP party, right?) we made the trip to Birmingham for the Doug Jones victory party, where the food and drinks were free in the Sheraton.

I tweeted that it would be a victory party. My Twitter feed notifications in the iPhone app went off “ding, ding, ding” all the way to Birmingham, and it’s a four hour drive.

Doug Jones Wins Historic Senate Election Over Defiant Judge Roy Moore

It was an unbelievable, earthquake of a victory, as I write in my book chapter on the campaign.

Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again

It gave the people of Alabama hope that they could stand up to the right-wing conservative “government is bad” nonsense and elect leaders who would actually represent their interests in Washington.

When the Democrats took control of the House in the midterm elections, there was great hope that Trump might be impeached and removed from office. Unfortunately, the Republicans in the Senate were too afraid of Trump and Putin to stand with the people, so they let him remain standing in the White House with his McDonalds hamburders.

Now there are just about two months to go before the American people have one more chance to save themselves and this amazing experiment in democracy, and maybe the planet to boot.

As the Democrats made the case this past week, it is going to take a massive record of voter turnout to save us now. We hope the American people are now ready to do their part.

We’ve told every story we could think of for the past three and a half years to expose the reality of what’s truly going on.

It’s up to “the people” now.



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