Steve Bannon is expected to plead not guilty Thursday to New York state charges related to trying to raise money to finance the construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border, attorney Robert Costello told CNN.
Donald Trump’s former aide will turn himself in to face charges Thursday morning, people familiar with the matter told CNN.
The state charges, which were returned in an indictment, are based on the same conduct for which Bannon was charged by federal prosecutors in 2020, alleging that he and three others defrauded donors to the border wall effort, which raised more than 25 million dollars.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office launched a criminal investigation into Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” fundraising activities early last year after then-President Trump pardoned Bannon on federal fraud charges related to the same alleged scheme.
Presidential pardons do not apply to government investigations.
As CNN previously reported, Bannon was federally charged with shelling out more than $1 million to pay an alleged co-conspirator and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses. Prosecutors alleged that donors, including some in New York, were falsely told that all the money they contributed would go toward the construction effort.
In recent months, several people in Bannon’s circle have been brought before a state grand jury.
Manhattan prosecutors subpoenaed the bank records and quietly worked on the investigation for the past year as they investigated Trump and his real estate holdings, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. But the district attorney’s office delayed charging Bannon until federal prosecutors finished their case against his three co-defendants, who were not granted clemency.
Bannon issued a statement late Tuesday, calling the indictment in part “false accusations” and “nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
“I am proud to be a leading voice for protecting our borders and building a wall to keep our country safe from drugs and violent criminals,” he said in the statement, adding: “They are after all of us, not just the President Trump. and myself. I’m never going to stop fighting. Actually, I haven’t started fighting yet. They’ll have to kill me first.”
A federal jury in July found Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces a minimum sentence of 30 days in jail , in accordance with federal law.
