Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon was charged Thursday in New York with financial fraud in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico, the Manhattan prosecutor announced, Alvin Bragg.
“It’s a crime to make a profit by lying to donors and in New York they hold you accountable,” Bragg told a news conference as he unveiled the charges, including that of “money laundering”, against Mr. Bannon and an association “We Build the Wall” which had raised some 15 million dollars in the United States to finance the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico – a campaign promise of Donald Trump, elected president in 2016.
Even before arriving in the early morning at the offices of New York State Attorney for the District of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, Mr. Bannon – dressed in black, three-day beard and salt-and-pepper hair – denounced in a statement “phony lawsuits against [lui]60 days before the mid-term legislative elections of November 8 between the Republican opposition and the Democratic majority.
Outside the lower Manhattan courthouse, Mr. Bannon, greeted by a forest of cameras, said on CNN “persecuted” by New York justice, including the first magistrates, prosecutors Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, are elected from the Democratic Party.
” Not guilty “
According to CNN, citing lawyer Robert Costello, Donald Trump’s former éminence grise should plead not guilty.
the washington post then the chains CNBC and CNN reported since Tuesday evening that Steve Bannon, 68, would go to the local justice authorities in New York to be charged with fraud and financial scam.
According to the press, this is the same case which in 2020 earned Mr. Bannon a first indictment for fraud by the United States federal justice.
The former White House adviser was even arrested in August 2020, accused along with three other people of defrauding and embezzling part of the $25 million in donor funds to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. A campaign promise from Donald Trump, elected in November 2016.
But Steve Bannon was never tried by a court, because he had been pardoned by Donald Trump on January 19, 2021, a day before the latter left the White House to leave it to Democrat Joe Biden.
On Wednesday, the former adviser blasted “a partisan politicization of criminal justice”.
The criminal indictment comes six weeks after Bannon was found guilty in federal court in Washington of obstructing the investigative powers of Congress. He had refused to cooperate with the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.