At least six other people connected to Trump, either through his 2016 campaign, his presidency or his business, have been charged with crimes.
The arrest of Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chief and former White House strategist, makes him the latest ex-associate of Trump’s to face charges. But he’s far from the first. Numerous other people connected to Trump, either through his 2016 campaign, his presidency or his business, have been charged with crimes. Many of those charges came out of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference in 2016. Steve Bannon Bannon,66, was arrested Thursday morning and charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors through a campaign to crowdfund the construction of a wall along the U. S.-Mexico border. The former executive chairman of right-wing news site Breitbart, Bannon was tapped in August 2016 to become chief executive of the Trump campaign. After Trump won the presidential election, Bannon became Trump’s chief White House strategist. He left that role in August 2017. Bannon and three others – including Brian Kolfage, who spearheaded the «We Build the Wall» fundraising effort – were each indicted by the U. S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The counts carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison each, according to a press release from the office. «As alleged, not only did they lie to donors, they schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth,» said Philip Bartlett, inspector-in-charge of the New York field office, in the press release. The White House distanced Trump from the alleged crowdfunding scheme. «As everyone knows, President Trump had no involvement in this project and felt it was only being done in order to showboat, and perhaps raise funds,» White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.
