Steve Bannon calls arrest and fraud charges a 'political hit job'
President Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon on Friday called his arrest yesterday a "political hit job" and vowed to fight the charges against him of fraud tied to a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump's border wall.
Posted — Updated"I'm not going to back down. This is a political hit job," Bannon said Friday on his conservative podcast, "War Room." "Everybody knows I love a fight."
Bannon claimed his arrest was "to stop and intimidate people" that support Trump building the wall on the US southern border.
"I'm in this for the long-haul. I'm in this for the fight. I'm going to continue to fight," Bannon said.
Bannon and three others were indicted Thursday for allegedly using hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to an online crowdfunding campaign called We Build the Wall for personal expenses, among other things.
Bannon and another defendant, Brian Kolfage, had promised donors that the campaign -- which ultimately raised more than $25 million -- would use 100% of those funds to help construct the border wall, according to the indictment.
Instead, according to prosecutors, he used more than $1 million from We Build the Wall to "secretly" pay Kolfage and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal expenses.
The President's former adviser was also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and on Friday, he told his podcast listeners that the charges against him were "nonsense."
Copyright 2024 by Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
