Government

'They Will Have To Kill Me First,' Promises Steve Bannon, Just Hours Before Surrender To NY Prosecutors

Jeopardy doesn't attach if you get pardoned before trial, genius.

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“I am never going to stop fighting,” Steve Bannon said yesterday when news broke of his impending indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “I have not yet begun to fight. They will have to kill me first.”

This morning the erstwhile Braveheart surrendered to prosecutors with rather less fanfare.

In a six-count indictment, New York prosecutors charged Bannon with participating in a scheme to defraud donors to a homebrew border wall project. These allegations aren’t new. In fact, Bannon was indicted in the Southern District of New York along with three of his co-conspirators in August of 2020 for the same conduct. But Trump did his former advisor a solid, pardoning him in the last few hours before left office, so jeopardy never attached. Bannon’s pals were not so lucky, though. Two pled guilty in April, and one went to trial, but the jury failed to reach an unanimous verdict.

The state indictment is full of unnamed parties, but thanks to prior coverage of the federal charges, we already have a pretty good picture of the characters in this grift. Brian Kolfage, a veteran and multiple amputee, served as the supposedly unpaid pitchman president of WeBuildTheWall, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to crowdfunding the construction of a southern border wall. Bannon chaired the charity’s advisory board, using his contacts to hoover up more than $25 million for the project.

Except Kolfage wasn’t unpaid, despite repeated fundraising pitches where he promised “While I work on this wall project remember I’m taking no salary and no compensation.” Bannon echoed the claim, such as at a June 2019 fundraiser where he told donors “remember, all the money you give goes to building the wall.”

In fact, the parties employed a not-particularly-elaborate network of shell entities to transfer cash to Kolfage. Some went out the front door to a company controlled by Kolfage’s wife as compensation for media work never performed. Some went out the back through entities controlled by Bannon which paid Kolfage directly. All told, the pitchman collected upwards of $350,000 for his “voluntary” efforts.

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Their efforts at subterfuge were similarly mediocre. They appear to have hatched the plot over text, congratulating themselves for coming up with the idea for an unpaid frontman, which “removes all self interest taint on this” and “gives [Kolfage] saint hood.”

And they were similarly chatty about their financial arrangements. Here’s a fun little passage from the indictment. Remember “Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1” is Kolfage, who was presumably unimpressed when Bannon got his get out of jail free card from Trump, and left everyone else high and dry.

One such intermediary was Unindicted Co-Conspirator Entity 1, which was a non-profit controlled by Bannon. WeBuildTheWall, Inc., Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1, Bannon, and others, in furtherance of the conspiracy, agreed to use Unindicted Co-Conspirator Entity 1 to accept money from WeBuildTheWall, Inc., and to use a portion of that money to pay Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1. On or about January 11, 2019, Bannon was informed in a text message from Unindicted Co-Conspirator 2 that Unindicted CoConspirator 1 would be stating publicly that he would not be taking a penny from the donations. Bannon responded “[Unindicted Co-Conspirator Entity 1] can pay him.” On or about January 15, 2019, Bannon wrote in a text message to Unindicted Co-Conspirator 2 that there would be “[n]o deals I don’t approve; and I pay [Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1] so what’s to worry.” On or about January 18, Bannon wrote an email to Unindicted Co-Conspirator 2 clarifying that “You want $100k to [Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1.]”

“It is a crime to turn a profit by lying to donors, and in New York, you will be held accountable,” District Attorney Bragg said at a press conference this afternoon announcing that his office had indicted the putrefying podcaster on two counts of second degree money laundering, three counts of conspiracy, and one count of scheme to defraud.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, with whom Bragg partnered on the prosecution and who has faced harsh criticism from Bannon over her investigation of the Trump Organization, agreed.

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“There cannot be one set of rules for everyday people and another for the wealthy and powerful – we all must play by the same rules and must obey the law,” she said. “Mr. Bannon took advantage of his donors’ political views to secure millions of dollars which he then misappropriated. Mr. Bannon lied to his donors to enrich himself and his friends. We will continue to take on fraudulent behavior in every corner of society, including white collar criminals, because no one is above the law.”

All in all, it’s been a productive summer for Bannon, who was found guilty of contempt of Congress in July. Clearly this is all a “partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system” aimed at suppressing “the major source of the MAGA grassroots movement.”

Okay, Ol’ Three Shirts. You bet.

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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