Former White House chief strategist and MAGA warrior Steve Bannon has been criminally charged in New York in a sealed indictment and is expected to surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday, according to the Washington Post and other outlets.
Bannon confirmed the indictment on Tuesday in a fire-and-brimstone statement ranting that an unnamed district attorney in New York “has now decided to pursue phoney charges against me 60 days before the midterm election because WarRoom is the major source of the Maga grassroots movement.”
Most of the news outlets that reported on the new indictment didn’t have details on the charges.
However, CNN and the Guardian reported that the charges are connected to Bannon’s infamous “We Build the Wall” scam that got him indicted for fraud by the federal government before Trump pardoned his former crony in the final hours of his presidency.
Additionally, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office began investigating Bannon’s role in the scheme after Trump’s pardon, which only applies to federal charges.
“We Build the Wall” was a crowdfunding project headed by Bannon and three other organizers with a purported aim to raise money for a privately built wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The campaign had raised at least $25 million before a federal grand jury in Manhattan charged Bannon and the other organizers with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in August 2020.
Bannon is already entangled in a separate criminal case in which he was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the House Jan. 6 Committee’s investigation into the Capitol insurrection.
Bannon’s sentencing hearing in that case has been scheduled for Oct. 21.
“We Build The Wall” --> “I Buy A Boat”
It would be nice if the justice system could put him away, but I have to wonder how much of what he’s accused of will be wiped out with the revelation of his pardon from TFG.
And while we’re in the neighborhood:
The puppies have been given names: Java, Chai, Venti, Maxwell and Beans (the last two are the males). Sadly, we lost one of the pups overnight, Latte. She drank a little too much and aspirated. Tighter controls on feeding in place going forward.
Bannon:
It’s wire fraud, if you do it over the phone.
Good thing the charges are real, though, and not phony.
Can you be tried for one crime when you’re in jail for another?
If I knew how, and weren’t terminally lazy, I would start a “We Build the Cell” fund. Proceeds used to build a private prison to hold repubs convicted of any and all crimes requiring incarceration. And, imo, all crimes committed by professional fascists would require incarceration.