Three others were charged in the alleged scheme, including Kolfage, who spent the money he received on home renovations, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, cosmetic surgery and jewelery, prosecutors say. Another is the chief executive of a Trump-themed energy-drink company in Colorado.
Long before the arrests, the wall-building effort had drawn criticism, including claims that sections were being constructed in floodplains and creating erosion. It was backed by high-profile Trump boosters like Blackwater founder Erik Prince and former Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach. Donald Trump Jr. once called it “private enterprise at its finest.”
Trump told reporters on Thursday that he didn’t support it because he didn’t want a privately financed border wall. The project “sounded to me like showboating,” he said, adding that the arrest was a “sad thing for Mr. Bannon.” The president tweeted last month that he thought the project was “only done to make me look bad.”
Bannon served as the chief executive of Trump’s 2016 campaign and was the ideological designer of his populist vision. He helped Trump expand his appeal among the far right -- often prompting accusations of racism and conspiracy mongering -- and was a leading proponent of the administration’s efforts to ban travel from a group of Muslim-majority countries.
But Bannon’s tenure in the White House was rocky. Opponents accused him of leaking frequently to the news media and rushing haphazard efforts to root out “deep state” opponents, while news coverage suggesting that he was using his influence to manipulate the president drew Trump’s ire. He was ousted just seven months into his role amid the firestorm over Trump’s reaction to the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.
We Build the Wall has completed two short sections of fencing along the border -- a one-mile section and a three-mile stretch -- filling in gaps in the existing U.S. government barricade.
As they raised the funds, the government alleges, Bannon and the others schemed to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret payments to Kolfage. To conceal those payments, Bannon moved the funds raised by We Build the Wall through a nonprofit he controlled before it was transferred to Kolfage, according to the indictment.
--With assistance from Chris Dolmetsch and Jordan Fabian.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.