Current:Home > NewsSteve Bannon’s trial in border wall fundraising case set for December, after his ongoing prison term -WealthPro Academy
Steve Bannon’s trial in border wall fundraising case set for December, after his ongoing prison term
View
Date:2025-04-15 19:01:21
While Steve Bannon serves a four-month federal prison term, the conservative strategist now has a December date for a different trial in New York, where he’s charged with scheming to con donors who gave money to build a border wall with Mexico.
With Bannon excused from court because of his incarceration, a judge Tuesday scheduled jury selection to start Dec. 9 in the “We Build the Wall” case.
The trial had been expected as soon as September. It was postponed because Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, is in a federal penitentiary in Connecticut after being convicted of defying a congressional subpoena related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
With his release expected in late October, Judge April Newbauer said she wanted to allow enough time afterward for Bannon to meet with his lawyers and review the case, trial exhibits and things she described as “difficult to go over during counsel visits in prison.”
After the jury is seated and opening statements are given, testimony is expected to take about a week.
Bannon’s lawyers, John Carman and Joshua Kirshner, declined to comment after court.
Prosecutors say Bannon helped funnel over $100,000 to a co-founder of the nonprofit WeBuildTheWall Inc. who was getting a secret salary, though Bannon and others had promised donors that every dollar would be used to help construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“All the money you give goes to building the wall,” Bannon said at a June 2019 fundraiser, according to the indictment. It doesn’t accuse him of pocketing any of the money himself, but rather of facilitating the clandestine payouts.
Bannon, 70, has pleaded not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges. He has called them “nonsense.”
Yet the accusations have dogged him from one court to another. He initially faced federal charges, until that prosecution was cut short when Trump pardoned Bannon in the last hours of his presidential term.
But presidential pardons apply only to federal charges, not state ones. And Bannon found himself facing state charges when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took up the “We Build the Wall” matter.
Three other men didn’t get pardoned and are serving federal prison time in the case. Two pleaded guilty; a third was convicted at trial.
Meanwhile, a federal jury in Washington convicted Bannon in 2022 of contempt of Congress, finding that he refused to answer questions under oath or provide documents to the House investigation into the Capitol insurrection.
Bannon’s attorneys argued that he didn’t refuse to cooperate but that there had been uncertainty about the dates for him to do so.
An appeals court panel upheld his conviction, and the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute bid to delay his prison term while his appeal plays out further.
He turned himself in July 1 to start serving his time, calling himself a “political prisoner” and slamming Attorney General Merrick Garland.
veryGood! (1869)
Related
- Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett
- It took Formula 1 way too long to realize demand for Las Vegas was being vastly overestimated
- US extends sanctions waiver allowing Iraq to buy electricity from Iran
- How Shaun White is Emulating Yes Man in His Retirement
- Why members of two of EPA's influential science advisory committees were let go
- Target tops third quarter expectations, but inflation weighs on shoppers
- NFL power rankings Week 11: Stars are bright for Texans, Cowboys
- The Taylor Swift economy must be protected at all costs
- NFL Week 15 picks straight up and against spread: Bills, Lions put No. 1 seed hopes on line
- 11 ex-police officers sentenced in 2021 killings of 17 migrants and 2 others in northern Mexico
Ranking
- Former longtime South Carolina congressman John Spratt dies at 82
- Work resumes at Montana mine where 24-year-old worker was killed in machinery accident
- 1 woman in critical condition a day after knife attack at Louisiana Tech University
- Kevin Hart will receive the Mark Twain Prize — humor's highest honor
- Senate begins final push to expand Social Security benefits for millions of people
- New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy announces run for US Senate seat in 2024
- At the UN’s top court, Venezuela vows to press ahead with referendum on future of disputed region
- Judge’s ruling advances plan to restructure $10 billion debt of Puerto Rico’s power company
Recommendation
EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
NATO to buy 6 more ‘eyes in the sky’ planes to update its surveillance capability
Jury finds Wisconsin woman guilty of poisoning friend with eye drops
Suspected German anti-government extremist convicted of shooting at police
Warm inflation data keep S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq under wraps before Fed meeting next week
Japan’s economy sinks into contraction as spending, investment decline
Ohio commission approves fracking in state parks and wildlife areas despite fraud investigation
11 ex-police officers sentenced in 2021 killings of 17 migrants and 2 others in northern Mexico