Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering while raising money for a campaign to build the US-Mexico border wall.
Mr Bannon and two others were indicted for allegedly funneling “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from the “We Build the Wall” online fundraising campaign to Brian Kolfage, the founder of the organisation who was also indicted by United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).
“As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalising on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretence that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a press release.
“We Build the Wall” started as a GoFundMe campaign in 2018, and it was designed to raise money from public funding to go directly towards building the wall at a time when the president was experiencing pushback from Congress.
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