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Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour.
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The American thought leader of a right-wing international political movement with tentacles throughout the English-speaking world just pled guilty to a felony crime involving moral turpitude.
The jet-setting anti-immigration activist Steve Bannon may soon find himself partly cut off from the key places of his global network of traditionalist politicians by Immigration Rules that ban felons from entry to the UK, Canada, and Australia.
Notoriously, Bannon is the founder of Cambridge Analytica, the UK-based psychological warfare company that stole Facebook data for years under the careful watch of a Russian university professor, interfering ingloriously in elections around the globe until they were caught.
Late last year, the Member of Parliament for Clacton, Reform Party UK leader Nigel Farage, was caught unlawfully and clandestinely using the American former White House advisor’s right-hand woman as his secret foreign agent for political affairs in the states.
Bannon appeared in front of a New York Supreme Court justice in Manhattan this Tuesday to plead guilty to a Class E felony fraud charge for stealing over $1,000,000 from Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters using the now-infamous WeBuildTheWall charity. These state charges are ineligible for a presidential pardon.
Pardoned Steve Bannon Still Faces ‘We Build the Wall’ State Investigation
Grant Stern, the journalist who exposed the scandal behind the non-profit organisation involved in building Trump’s wall, explains the background and why Bannon isn’t off-the-hook
The UK’s Home Office is obligated to cancel entry clearance for any person who “has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas for which they have received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more; or a persistent offender who shows a particular disregard for the law.” Bannon was convicted of two counts of obstructing Congress and served a four-month federal prison sentence last year.
Five years and eight months ago, on Mother’s Day Sunday at 11 am, I got a telephone call from a right-wing activist with a tip about WeBuildTheWall’s charismatic founder, the triple-amputee wounded veteran Brian Kolfage.
The tip was so hot that I dropped everything to write the story within an hour after verifying the basic facts: the tipster said, and I agreed based upon social media posts, that Kolfage appeared to be living well above his stated means despite saying he “wouldn’t take a penny” for his efforts. In fact, he’d told the tipster only six months earlier that he was broke after Facebook “deplatformed” his “Right Wing News” page featuring links from the same-named website (which I wouldn’t characterize as actual news) due to numerous fact-checks demonstrating his content’s falsity.
Within 24 hours, the post about WeBuildTheWall, who’d raised $20 million on GoFundMe.com, had generated over 330,000 views, two updates, a 39-message email exchange with the nonprofit’s proprietor, and the next day, one lawyer’s defamation threat letter.
In an ironic twist, it was Brian Kolfage who wrote to me, “[W]e’ve also contacted a fact checking [sic] website and provided them with all the info, so your articles will be flagged as false across the internet =) have a nice day” before contacting Bethania Palma at Snopes.com.
The Florida Department of Agriculture’s Consumer Services quickly began a civil investigation of Kolfage’s charity – at the time, none of us knew the extent of Bannon’s involvement – based upon Snopes and my reporting.
I obtained that email a week later via a public records request. “We’re opening an investigation on them,” it read.
WeBuildTheWall’s lawyer letter arrived almost simultaneously.
This made me choose to seek out the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnson. After a long pitch, he agreed to publish my 2,300-word follow-up story on his site, including the breaking news of the investigation along with what I considered a road map to investigating the farcically obvious wrongdoings involving WeBuildTheWall.
In response to my persistent reporting, Bannon and Kolfage responded by openly mocking my reports on their widely viewed platforms to keep raising money for their private wall project. At the time, nobody knew how involved the former Breitbart.com editor was with the wall nonprofit.
“Welcome back, this is Steve Bannon. We’re off the coast of St. Tropez, in southern France, in the Mediterranean. We’re on the million-dollar yacht of Brian Kolfage. And uh, Brian Kolfage, he took all that money from WeBuildTheWall,” he said, gently clapping Kolfage on the shoulder while smirking as part of their ‘Wall-a-Thon’ fundraising livestream. “No actually, we’re in Sunland Park, New Mexico.”
“Hey @grantstern since you’re digging into my financial portfolio make sure you check out my new house I just paid off yesterday,” wrote Kolfage on Twitter before it was bought and turned into X. “It was $22 MILLION! ummm derp. #FAKENEWS!”
Right-wing news outlet OANN stepped in to ‘set the record straight’ for Trump’s MAGA donors to convince them to keep the money spigot open for the criminals defrauding thousands of true believers.
This drew a hearty thank you from WeBuildTheWall.
Federal prosecutors would eventually indict Kolfage, Steve Bannon, and Bannon’s associates Timothy Shea and Andrew Badolato in August 2020 for fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges linked to the founder’s boat payments, luxury housing payments, a lovely Range Rover vehicle and other kickbacks the four men clandestinely arranged while privately acknowledging the power of the all-volunteer pitch.
In another massive irony, when the US Postal Service Inspectors – an obscure but essential law enforcement agency that guards the mail – arrested Bannon, he was on a multi-million dollar yacht. But that vessel was owned by his former sponsor, Miles Kwok, aka Guo Wengui, a Chinese national posing as a dissident who lavishly funded the former Trump White House advisor’s political and media ventures and the social network Gettr with his close associate Jason Miller at the helm. Guo is presently in a federal prison after having been convicted of federal fraud charges, racketeering, and money laundering last year.
The WeBuildTheWall founder Kolfage was also indicted on tax crimes, to which he pled guilty, and is presently in a federal prison. In all, the four men diverted $1 million amongst themselves using Bannon’s charity Citizens of the American Republic as a vehicle to launder the payments.
Pardoned Steve Bannon Still Faces ‘We Build the Wall’ State Investigation
Grant Stern, the journalist who exposed the scandal behind the non-profit organisation involved in building Trump’s wall, explains the background and why Bannon isn’t off-the-hook
When in August 2019, both Byline Times and Raw Story published my story breaking definitive news of the state of Florida’s criminal investigation into WeBuildTheWall, it didn’t deter the men who only stopped upon discovering a federal law enforcement subpoena.
One of Bannon’s henchmen, Timothy Shea, pled guilty. The other, Andrew Badolato, went to trial, won a mistrial, and lost his second criminal trial. All of them landed federal prison sentences. The government seized $17 million from WeBuildtheWall, which they forfeited.
WeBuildTheWall’s highly paid counsel, Kris Kobach, avoided entanglement in the criminal case but never saw the $3.5 million in fees he racked up working for the charity”. He was later elected Attorney General for the state of Kansas.
Before Steve Bannon would face a federal prosecution like his peers, Donald Trump used the power of the U.S. presidency to bestow a full pardon upon him during his final day in office.
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That very day, Byline Times published my exclusive reporting that the state of Florida’s criminal investigation into Bannon was ongoing despite his federal pardon. It was that investigation, which later a senior state of Florida official confirmed to me, was passed along to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York.
Now, 2,102 days after I wrote the initial story and 1,484 days since the last, Steve Bannon just admitted in New York state court that he is a fraud who committed a major felony lying to MAGA donors.