Steven Bannon Fraud Trial Delayed Until February

Trump and his allies continue to get good news from the courts.

After several of Trump’s legal cases have been delayed, ally Steve Bannon now got the same news.

Reports are breaking that the case over border wall funding involving Bannon and several other individuals has been delayed until February.

Push It Back

“We Build the Wall” originated as a charitable organization that raised funds to complete the border wall construction.

The campaign started as a GoFundMe page created by Brian Kolfage, initially raising about $25 million.

That money was reportedly used to build a three-mile stretch of wall between New Mexico and Texas.

Steven Bannon, Kris Kobach, Erik Prince, and Tom Tancredo were added to the organization as members of an advisory board, with Bannon being named the chair of the board.

In late 2020, the group was accused of defrauding donors, having allegedly used hundreds of thousands of dollars from the fund for personal expenses.

Overall, it was estimated that nearly $1 million had been illegally diverted from the fund.

Kolfage and Bodolato took a plea deal, while Shea was convicted in a second trial (the first ended in a hung jury), receiving 63 months in prison.

Trump had pardoned Bannon, but the state of New York brought new charges, for which he was indicted in September 2022.

Bannon’s trial was supposed to start on December 9, but Judge April Newbauer has now delayed the start of the trial until February.

Prosecutors are claiming that $600,000 in debt of separate non-profit organizations associated with Bannon were paid off using some of the diverted funds from We Build the Wall.

My opinion on this was that Trump never should have pardoned Bannon, especially since Bannon was allegedly using a key element of Trump’s campaign to steal money from donors.

Speculation at the time, however, was that Bannon had inside information on Trump, and there was no way that Trump would risk Bannon going to jail and have that information divulged, so he pardoned Bannon.

Trump cannot help Bannon now, however, so he will stand trial, and based on the outcome of the other cases, the outcome here will not be good for Bannon.

For now, however, the case is on ice, with Bannon continuing to maneuver to have the case changed to a new venue that would be more advantageous for his defense.