According to persons with knowledge of the situation, Steve Bannon is anticipated to turn himself in on Thursday to face New York state charges relating to his fundraising campaign to erect a wall along the southern US border.
The federal indictment against Bannon from 2020 constituted the basis for the state accusations that have been returned in an indictment. As he was about to leave office, then-President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon of the federal corruption allegations associated with the alleged conspiracy. State inquiries are not covered by presidential pardons.
Bannon’s intentions to give up were first revealed by The Washington Post.
After the pardon, the Manhattan district attorney’s office launched an investigation into Bannon and the “We Build The Wall” crowdsourcing project.
Some of Bannon’s close friends have recently been before the state grand jury.
Late on Tuesday, Bannon released a statement, in which he described the accusations as “fake” and the prosecution as “nothing other than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
“They are after all of us, not just President Trump and I, he continued, adding, “I am happy to be a strong voice on defending our borders and building a wall to keep our country safe from narcotics and violent criminals. I’ll never give up battling. In fact, I haven’t even started to battle yet. They’ll need to murder me first.”
His attorney declined to speak.
Federal authorities with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had charged Bannon and 3 other individuals, with defrauding donors in the border wall initiative, which garnered more than $25 million.
Bannon was accused of using more than $1 million in improperly obtained funds to compensate an alleged co-conspirator and pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of personal expenses. The contributors, some of whom were located in New York, allegedly received false assurances that all of their contributions would be used for the construction project, according to the prosecution.
In the course of their investigation of Trump and his real estate business over the past year, Manhattan prosecutors subpoenaed bank documents and worked on the case covertly, according to previous people familiar with the situation.
2 of the suspected border wall conspirators, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, entered guilty pleas to one count of conspiracy to conduct wire fraud in April. In addition, Kolfage entered pleas of guilty to two counts of filing a fake tax return and one count of wire fraud related to submitting a fraudulent tax return.
A judge declared a mistrial in June after the jury repeatedly told her that it was deadlocked. Timothy Shea, a fourth man involved in the fundraising campaign, was indicted on multiple charges of conspiracy for the alleged scam.
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