Bannon's indictment confirms that the American right is made up of con artists [View all]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/20/bannons-indictment-confirms-that-american-right-is-made-up-con-artists/
If you thought Stephen K. Bannon was going to end up in handcuffs, you might have predicted that it wouldnt be for a small-time con. After all, Bannon went from running a far-right online publication to the heights of U.S. conservatism, first as CEO of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trumps campaign and then as chief strategist in the White House. He even had ambitions to take his political project global.
But it turns out that the scheme that Bannon has just been criminally charged with is indeed a species of penny-ante grift. Yet its the sort of grift the American right has been running on its own voters for decades, which makes this absolutely fitting:
Federal prosecutors in New York on Thursday unsealed criminal charges against Stephen K. Bannon, President Trumps former chief strategist, and three other men they alleged defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors using an online crowdfunding campaign that was advertised as raising money to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
In a news release, prosecutors said Bannon and another organizer of the campaign, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, claimed they would not take any compensation as part of the campaign, called We Build The Wall, but that was a lie. Bannon, prosecutors alleged, received more than $1 million through a nonprofit he controlled, sending hundreds of thousands out to Kolfage while keeping a substantial portion for himself.
If youre keeping score, the group of people around the president who have been charged with crimes now includes Trumps campaign CEO, Trumps campaign chairman, Trumps deputy campaign chairman, Trumps personal lawyer, Trumps national security adviser and Trumps longtime friend and political adviser.
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