STeve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief adviser, has to answer in court again. As several American media reported, he is to be charged on Thursday with fraud in connection with the building of the wall on the border with Mexico. Bannon has an appointment with the New York City Attorney’s Office Thursday, Bannon’s attorney Robert Costello said.
The background to this are allegations for which he and three other people had already been charged in federal court in 2020. Now the judiciary of the state of New York is taking action against him. Bannon called this “false” in a statement. It was a “sham investigation” against him just two months before the congressional elections. He accused the judiciary of “armed partisan politicization”. Prosecutors in Manhattan, on the other hand, want to argue that Bannon also violated state law, which is not covered by presidential clemency. In 2019, Parliament in Albany passed a law specifically for this purpose.
Bannon was temporarily arrested in August 2020 on suspicion of having embezzled large sums of donation money together with three partners. The donations were actually intended to finance the wall planned by Trump on the border with Mexico. Bannon never went to court on the matter because Trump pardoned him on January 19, 2021, one day before the end of his term.
Six weeks ago, a Washington court found Bannon guilty of obstructing Congress for refusing to testify before the investigative committee into the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol. Right-wing populist Bannon was appointed campaign manager by Trump in 2016. After his election victory, he was his chief adviser in the White House for a short time. In the summer of 2017, however, he left the government. After the 2020 election, he helped Trump mobilize the “stop the steal” protests. The parliamentary committee of inquiry is trying to clarify his exact role in the storming of the Capitol and possible connections to right-wing extremist militias.
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