Updated Feb. 11, 2025
Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser to President Trump, pleaded guilty Tuesday in a New York state criminal case related to a fundraising scheme that defrauded donors to a border-wall nonprofit.
Bannon, the host of “War Room,” a popular show with Trump supporters, entered a guilty plea to one count of a scheme to defraud in the first degree. In exchange, prosecutors said he would receive a three-year conditional discharge, allowing him to avoid prison time.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office indicted Bannon in 2022 on six charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud. The indictment alleged that Bannon directed a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud thousands of donors to We Build the Wall, a crowdfunding campaign that backed an effort to erect a wall along the southern U.S. border. His trial was set to begin next month.
Bannon, who served as the White House’s chief strategist in the first seven months of Trump’s first term, barely spoke during his court appearance. He answered “yes” when a judge asked if he was pleading guilty.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that under the terms of the plea, Bannon is barred from serving as an officer or director of charities with assets in New York. “This resolution achieves our primary goal: to protect New York’s charities and New Yorkers’ charitable giving from fraud,” Bragg said.
Last year Bannon was jailed for four months after being found guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Federal prosecutors in 2020 charged Bannon and others with fraud related to the border wall nonprofit. Trump pardoned Bannon the following year. The White House said in a statement at the time that Bannon “has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen.”
A
state prosecutor said in court Tuesday that Bannon won’t have to pay
restitution to donors because they had been made whole by forfeiture
actions in the federal case.
Arthur Aidala, a lawyer for Bannon, added: “There were never any accusations in this particular case that Mr. Bannon enriched himself.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been a thorn in the side of Trump and his allies. The office won a conviction against Trump last year in which a jury found him guilty of covering up hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. In 2022, Trump’s family business was found guilty in a Manhattan state court of an off-the-books compensation scheme to pay some executives in car leases, apartments and cash.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing. He accused Bragg, a Democrat, of bringing the hush-money charges against him out of political spite.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on her first day in office last week ordered the Justice Department to conduct a review of the district attorney’s cases against Trump, his family and company to determine whether the federal government played a role in those prosecutions. The Justice Department is also reviewing the civil cases that New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against Trump, members of his family and the Trump Organization.
Outside the courthouse Tuesday, a defiant Bannon blasted Bragg and James, saying they used their offices to carry out lawfare against Trump.
“I’m calling on, right now, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to begin an immediate criminal investigation into Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, all of them for what they did to President Trump,” said Bannon.
Write to James Fanelli at james.fanelli@wsj.com and Corinne Ramey at corinne.ramey@wsj.com
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Appeared in the February 12, 2025, print edition as 'Bannon Pleads Guilty to Fraud In Border-Wall Fundraising'.