Steve Bannon just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. As regular readers know, it was just two years ago when federal prosecutors first filed criminal charges against Donald Trump’s former campaign strategist and White House aide. He was accused at the time of participating in an alleged wall-building scam.
Though the allegations seemed to have merit, Trump made Bannon’s problem go away: On Jan. 20, 2021, with just hours remaining in his term, the outgoing president pardoned Bannon before prosecutors could bring the case to trial.
That was not, however, the end of the political operative’s legal troubles. Bannon was indicted again after blowing off a congressional subpoena, and in July, a jury convicted him on two counts of contempt of Congress.
While he awaits sentencing, which is currently scheduled for October, Bannon is apparently poised to be indicted again. NBC News reported:
Almost two years after he received a pardon from President Donald Trump in a federal fraud case, Steve Bannon is expected to face state indictment in New York. In a statement first shared with NBC News on Tuesday night, Bannon said New York “has now decided to pursue phony charges against me 60 days before the midterm election.”
According to The Washington Post, which was first to report on the looming indictment, the prosecution will likely “mirror aspects of the federal case in which Bannon was pardoned.”
In other words, it’s time to take a fresh look at the We Build The Wall project.
For those who might need a refresher, We Build the Wall came into existence partway through Trump’s term, ostensibly created to supplement the Republican White House’s efforts to construct barriers along the U.S./Mexico border. While the Trump administration used taxpayer money to construct fencing, We Build the Wall said it would raise private funds from donors in pursuit of the same goal.
As a high-profile political player, Bannon’s role as a board member of the outfit lent it credibility. It wasn’t long before We Build the Wall raised $25 million for the private venture.
The project, however, almost immediately ran into troubles. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reported, for example, that structural issues raised concerns that the conservative outfit delivered a defective product.
The whole endeavor became so problematic that Trump tried to distance himself from the group and its endeavor. He was, by all appearances, brazenly lying: The Texas Tribune reported, Trump claimed “this privately funded border wall in the Rio Grande Valley … was built to ‘make me look bad,’ even though the project’s builder and funders are all Trump supporters.”








