Steve Bannon to go on trial in December for alleged fraud in We Build the Wall fundraiser
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon will stand trial beginning Dec. 9 on charges he defrauded donors to an online effort to raise money for a wall along the U.S. southern border.
During a brief hearing on Tuesday, prosecutors said they would take three to four days to present evidence. Defense attorneys expected their case to last two days.
Bannon, who is currently serving a federal prison sentence for contempt of Congress, did not attend the hearing.
“Mr. Bannon was excused by the court,” Judge April Newbauer said.
Prosecutors sought a trial date in November, but Newbauer said that was too soon since Bannon will not be released from FCI Danbury until October.
“This trial was originally set for May. We were prepared to try it then,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Passesser said.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty and asked the court to dismiss the charges in January. Newbauer said she would rule on that request in late August.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has said Bannon defrauded donors to the nonprofit We Build the Wall by falsely promising that none of the money they donated would be used to pay the salary of the organization’s president, Brian Kolfage, while secretly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to him by laundering it through third-party entities.
The campaign said We Build the Wall would use the money to privately construct the border wall — a central tenant of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and again on his current campaign — and prosecutors said a “central piece of the public messaging in support of this fundraising effort was that Kolfage was not taking a penny of compensation.”
Financial records show Kolfage was paid according to a secret salary arrangement — an upfront payment of $100,000 and monthly payments of approximately $20,000.
Kolfage was sentenced to 51 months in prison in April 2023 for his role in the fundraiser, which generated upward of $25 million in donations.
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — At his first rally since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid, former President Donald Trump rallied his supporters against Vice President Kamala Harris, going after her record on immigration, health care, and the environment, painting her as an “ultra liberal” candidate.
“Just like crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is unfit to lead. She’s unfit to lead, she’ll destroy our country in a year, this country will be destroyed,” Trump said at his rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
As Trump referenced Harris’ name dozens of times throughout his nearly 1.5-hour-long speech, he mispronounced her first name every single time.
Though Trump had previously called for unity in the wake of the attempt on his life by a gunman at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, two weeks ago, Trump put a nail in the coffin on his short-lived “nice” campaign.
“They’re very dangerous people — when you’re dealing with them, you can’t be so nice … If you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice. Is that OK?” Trump said about Biden and Harris, which was followed by the crowd cheering, “Fight, fight, fight.”
The former president took a victory lap about Biden’s dropout, accusing Democrats of pushing him out of office due to his low poll numbers.
“As you know, three days ago, we officially defeated the worst president in the history of our country, Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump said. “So now we have a new victim to defeat. Lyin’ Kamala Harris — Lyin’, apostrophe — the most incompetent and far left vice president in American history.”
Trump’s rally comes as Harris attacked him and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on Tuesday, at her first presidential campaign event in battleground Wisconsin, on the issue of abortion and Project 2025, the conservative presidential transition blueprint fronted by the Heritage Foundation.
“We’ll stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own body and not have the government tell them what to do,” Harris said to raucous applause. “And when Congress passes the law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law.”
In Biden’s address to the nation on Wednesday about his decision to exit the race, the president said, “There’s a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices and yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”
The president did not address ongoing Republican criticisms about his fitness to serve.
Throughout Trump’s speech, he attempted to flesh out numerous attacks on Harris, specifically focusing on her handling of immigration issues, which he argued should disqualify her from running for the nation’s highest office.
“Kamala’s deadly destruction of America’s borders is completely and totally disqualifying. She shouldn’t even be allowed to run for president what she’s done,” accused Trump.
In March of 2021, Biden appointed Harris to oversee, lead, and coordinate diplomatic talks with Northern Triangle countries to address the root causes of migration. Republicans quickly labeled that assignment as the “border czar,” though Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is in charge of border oversight.
So far on the campaign trail, Harris has focused on going after Trump’s record concerning reproductive rights, directly blaming him for the rollback of abortion access for women. Trump attempted to respond to that argument by labeling Harris as a radical on abortion, pushing unfounded claims that she supports late-term abortions.
And as the Harris campaign paints the election as one between a prosecutor and felon, Trump on Wednesday called her “one of the worst prosecutors” who “destroyed San Francisco.”
“Their campaign says, ‘I’m the prosecutor and he is the convicted felon.’ That’s their campaign. I don’t think people are gonna buy it,” Trump said, touting he won the Florida classified documents case.
Going through her record as California attorney general, Trump criticized her past support for bail reform which he argued made her soft on crime. Hailing from California, Trump typecasted Harris as an extreme liberal, highlighting her support for the Green New Deal and a ban on fracking.
The Harris campaign declared that Trump’s attacks on Harris signaled his message of unity following his assassination attempt.
“Unity is over for Donald Trump — he is back with an unhinged, weird, and rambling speech,” Harris for President spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. “But the American people won’t be fooled or distracted.”
(WASHINGTON) — An aide to Ohio Sen. JD Vance was informed by a top Springfield, Ohio, official earlier this month that claims about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs were false but the vice presidential nominee went ahead with spreading the rumor anyway, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by ABC News.
City manager Bryan Heck, in a Sept. 9 phone call, told a Vance staffer the “claims were baseless” when asked if they were true.
A city spokesperson confirmed to ABC News the accuracy of the Wall Street Journal’s reporting about the call.
Still, Vance did not delete a post on X he wrote that same morning asserting “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” One day later, former President Donald Trump amplified the claim on the ABC News presidential debate stage with millions of viewers tuned in.
The Vance campaign, in an effort to defend the vice presidential pick, provided the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday with a police report to try to substantiate his claims. But the woman in the report, Anna Kilgore, told the Journal she was mistaken.
ABC News spoke with Kilgore, who lives near downtown Springfield, on Wednesday afternoon. Kilgore said her cat Missy Sassy went missing and they believed their Haitian neighbors were to blame for the disappearance. After filing the police report, Kilgore’s cat returned home safely several days later.
She told ABC News that she apologized to her Haitian neighbors who have lived next door for the past year, and they were very gracious and there seemed to be no hard feelings.
ABC has requested the police report but has not independently obtained it.
When asked what led her to believe her neighbors were behind the cat’s disappearance, Kilgore said, “because of rumors I heard.” When pressed on where she heard those rumors she continued with, “on Facebook and TikTok.”
Kilgore is a Trump-Vance supporter with signs and flags outside of her home. She was also wearing a “Trump 2024” t-shirt while speaking to ABC News.
When asked what she would say to Vance and his campaign, she simply said, “I wish I could take it all back.”
ABC News also asked her if this situation would have any impact on her vote in November, to which she simply said, “No.”
ABC News has reached out to Vance’s campaign for a statement on the Wall Street Journal report but has not yet received a response.
Vance appeared on several talk shows on Sunday where he was pressed about the Springfield controversy, which has led to the community experiencing threats.
He largely defended bringing national attention to the issue of immigration in Springfield. The Ohio town did experience an influx of 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants who are legally authorized to live and work there, and as a result some city resources have been strained. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently announced measures to expand primary care access, allocate funds for translation services and more.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast,” Vance said on CNN.
CNN anchor Dana Bash followed up with Vance about what he said about having to “create stories,” and Vance responded: “It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”
“I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’s policies. Her policies did that,” Vance added.
Harris on Tuesday said it was a “crying shame” what was happening to the Springfield community and criticized Trump and Vance for engaging in “that hateful rhetoric.”
(WASHINGTON) — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statement on Monday night signaling that he’s removed himself from contention as a vice presidential running mate for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
“I strongly support Vice President Harris’ campaign for President. I know she’s going to win and I was honored to be considered for this role. This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” he said in a post on X.
“As l’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins,” he added.
Moments after Cooper issued his statement, he delivered remarks on a “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call, but did not address withdrawing as a possible running mate. The governor instead took the time to boost Harris’ candidacy, saying, “We know that this country needs Kamala Harris more than ever right now, and we can hold the key now.”
Cooper previously announced his support for Harris’ presidential campaign. On July 21, he formally endorsed the vice president, writing, “Kamala Harris should be the next President. I’ve known @VP going back to our days as AGs, and she has what it takes to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country thoughtfully and with integrity. I look forward to campaigning for her as we work to win NC up and down the ticket.”
Cooper, who is the former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was seen as a possible top contender for Harris’ 2024 election ticket to expand the Democratic Party’s reach into swing states.
If Cooper were to join Harris’ campaign, however, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson would become active governor while on the campaign trail, under constitutional law.
Robinson is the Republican party’s nominee for governor in the state, in the race to replace Cooper who is term-limited from running for a third time.
Other rumored contenders for Harris’ running mate include Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Harris is expected to announce her VP nomination by Aug. 7, ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which will kick off in Chicago on Aug. 19.