Tag: Steve Bannon

Trump For House Speaker Is A Bannon Brainstorm

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Following former President Donald Trump’s June 4 remark that the idea of becoming speaker of the House after the 2022 midterm election is “very interesting” to him, political media has been abuzz with speculation. The idea has been making rounds in right-wing spheres in various iterations since January, when it was first championed by former White House chief strategist, election conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, and enchanted pile of dirty laundry Steve Bannon.

On January 21, conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, who goes by “DC Draino” online, appeared on Bannon’s show War Room: Pandemic to discuss his tweet, in which he had proposed that “Trump run for Congress in Florida in ’22” and become speaker of the House, after which he can “impeach Kamala” — a remark that suggests Biden would not be president in 2023.

During the show, Bannon effusively praised O’Handley’s idea. He said the possibility of Trump, the only former president to incite an insurrection, becoming speaker in 2023 means “we don’t have to wait until 2024 to have a presidential election. This nationalizes the midterm elections” and “gives a unifying message” for Trump’s base to rally around. Continue reading.

Chinese businessman with links to Steve Bannon is driving force for a sprawling disinformation network, researchers say

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Guo Wengui, living in self-exile in New York City, is at the center of a digital web pushing election and covid falsehoods, according to Graphika research

A sprawling online network tied to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has become a potent platform for disinformation in the United States, attacking the safety of coronavirus vaccines, promoting false election-fraud claims and spreading baseless QAnon conspiracies, according to research published Monday by the network analysis company Graphika.

The report, provided in advance to The Washington Post, details a network that Graphika says amplifies the views of Guo, a Chinese real estate developer whose association with former Trump White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon became a focus of news coverage last year after Bannon was arrested aboard Guo’s yacht on federal fraud charges.

Graphika said the network includes media websites such as GTV, for which Guo last year publicly said he was raising funds, along with thousands of social media accounts that Graphika said amplify content in a coordinated fashion. The network also includes more than a dozen local-action groups over which Guo has publicly claimed an oversight role, Graphika found. Continue reading.

Bannon battling prosecutors who won’t dismiss his case after Trump’s pardon

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NEW YORK — Stephen K. Bannon, the firebrand political strategist and ex-confidant to former president Donald Trump, is fighting to get his federal fraud case formally dismissed over the strong objection of prosecutors, who have argued that his full pardon does not mean his indictment must be wiped from the record.

Bannon, who helped engineer Trump’s 2016 election win before briefly serving as a White House adviser, asked a judge late Thursday to follow others in New York and elsewhere who outright dismissed cases after Trump issued pardons. To support his bid, Bannon cited the post-pardon dismissals of charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser accused of lying about his contacts with Russian officials, and rapper Lil’ Wayne, who was facing gun charges in Florida.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is preparing for trial against three of Bannon’s co-defendants in an alleged border wall fundraising scam, is seeking an “administrative” termination of Bannon’s case, which would halt the prosecution against him for good but would not clear his name from the docket. The case would officially remain pending while the others, who were not pardoned by Trump before he left office in January, await trial. Continue reading.

Manhattan district attorney considering prosecuting Stephen Bannon following his pardon by Trump in federal fraud case

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NEW YORK — The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is weighing whether to bring a state court case against Stephen K. Bannon, who was indicted on federal fraud charges for his role in a fundraising scheme to build a border wall but received a last-minute pardon from President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bannon, one of the architects of Trump’s 2016 election victory and briefly a White House adviser, was among 143 people who received pardons from Trump in his last 24 hours in office. Bannon left the White House early in Trump’s term after he fell out with the president, who wavered until the last minute on issuing his former strategist a pardon, The Washington Post reported.

Bannon and three others were charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan with falsely claiming that they would not take compensation as part of their “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign to underwrite part of the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Continue reading.

Steve Bannon and his co-host discuss beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray

Bannon: “I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats”

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci.

Now I actually want to go a step farther but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone — time to stop playing games. blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that’ll light them up, right.

JACK MAXEY (CO-HOST): You know what Steve, just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia, these were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated if you will with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.

BANNON: That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war. Continue reading.

Criminality in Trump’s circle is unprecedented. Steve Bannon is just the latest charged.

Bannon’s arrest is the latest in a long line of criminal charges involving Trump confidants. This level of criminality surrounding a president is unparalleled.

In many ways it sounds like the plot of a cheap crime novel. The evil mastermind devises a scheme to fleece the unsuspecting public of millions of dollars. He lies to the public repeatedly about how the money they send him is going to be used. He hides the payments that he makes to himself and his co-conspirators behind a series of false invoices and fictitious nonprofit companies. In the end, he’s arrested while sitting on a boat owned by a mysterious exiled Chinese businessman.

But this isn’t the stuff of fiction. It’s the outline of the allegations against Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chief, and his alleged co-conspirators. Together, the defendants are said to have created a GoFundMe site, “We Build The Wall,” that promised to collect money from Americans and use it to help build President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall on the southern border with Mexico. 

To reassure their donors, Bannon and Brian Kolfage, one of the indicted co-conspirators, repeatedly told the public that all of the money would go “directly to the wall!!! Not anyone’s pocket,” and that they would “take $0” from the funds for themselves. Bannon, Kolfage and their two co-defendants allegedly approved these statements (as the indictment puts it) “precisely because they understood and expected that donors would rely upon these representations, which were intended to maximize the fundraising potential of We Build The Wall.”  Continue reading.

Why Bannon’s Arrest Has Trump Quaking In His Golf Shoes

Thursday’s arrest of Steve Bannon, the last manager of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, carries powerful messages that strike fear in The Donald. The arrest of Bannon and three others on fraud charges grows from a pair of 2019 DCReport articles by Grant Stern.

If federal prosecutors can flip Bannon, a 66-year-old man ill-suited by health or personality to prison life, it would be devastating for Trump. Although the president enjoys immunity from federal indictment, that privilege ends the moment his presidency does.

Subpoenaed records are virtually certain to result in the indictment of Trump.

The Bannon arrest also helps explain why Trump tried, and failed, to install his own man in the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan: Bannon’s fraud case involving a $25 million charity scam to build a wall on the Mexican border. Continue reading.

Five takeaways on Bannon’s indictment

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Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former top White House adviser and 2016 campaign chief, was arrested and charged on Thursday for his role in an alleged fundraising fraud.

Bannon is accused of helping to funnel money from a charity that was soliciting donations for a privately-built border wall. According to court filings, he allegedly used hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses and to secretly pay the co-founder of the organization We Built The Wall.

The charges mark a stunning reversal of fortune for the man who once orchestrated Trump’s improbable election, making him the latest in a series of the president’s allies who have faced criminal charges over the past three years.

Here are five takeaways from today’s indictment:  Continue reading.

Steve Bannon pleads not guilty on fraud charges

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Former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon pleaded not guilty on Thursday after being indicted and taken into custody in New York on federal fraud charges.

The latest: A federal judge agreed to release Bannon on a $5 million bond. His travel will be restricted to the New York and Washington, D.C. areas, and he will not be allowed to use private jets or boats without permission.

The state of play: Bannon, along with three others, allegedly defrauded donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own profit with a crowdfunding campaign called “We Build the Wall” that raked in over $25 million. Continue reading.

McConnell sets vote for Trump media agency pick, who has ties to Steve Bannon

Michael Pack is also under active investigation by D.C. attorney general for alleged self-dealing, self-enrichment

Corrected, 6:20 p.m. | The Senate on Thursday will consider the nomination of conservative filmmaker Michael Pack, who has collaborated with former Breitbart News head Steve Bannon and is being actively investigated by the attorney general for the District of Columbia for alleged self-dealing and self-enrichment.

Pack, whose nomination has been pending for several years, was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The agency has an annual budget of roughly $1 billion and includes U.S. taxpayer-funded news outlets Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a May party-line 12-10 vote, advanced Pack’s nomination after a heated exchange between the panel’s Republicans and Democrats about breaking committee tradition by considering a nominee who is under an active criminal investigation. Continue reading.