Longtime Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who served in the president’s 2016 campaign, has been charged with defrauding investors in a “We Build the Wall” fundraiser.
The charges against Bannon and three other men — Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea — were announced by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York on Thursday morning.
In a press release, U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said that the men defrauded “hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as ‘We Build the Wall’ that raised more than $25 million.” The attorney said that all of the men were arrested on Thursday morning.
Strauss said, “The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction.”
She continued, “While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle.”
Leaders of ‘We Build The Wall’ online fundraising campaign charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors https://t.co/cH2abWm2Ph pic.twitter.com/NKxfKXkcEX
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) August 20, 2020
The investigator on the case added, “Not only did they lie to donors, they schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth. This case should serve as a warning to other fraudsters that no one is above the law, not even a disabled war veteran or a millionaire political strategist.”
The indictment charges that Kolfage used more than $350,000 from the fundraiser “to pay for his own personal expenses, including, among other purposes, home renovations, payments toward a boat, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments, and credit card debt.”
This is not the first time that the group has been in the news for their behavior. In August of 2019, Florida prosecutors said that they were investigating the “We Build the Wall” organization after complaints.