Posted on 09/08/2022 1:20:44 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man
I have not been following his case very closely. What facts are against him? He seems like a stand up guy. I would be surprised if he did anything illegal unless it was a paperwork error of some sort. He deemed legit that he was going to spend the money on the wall until they stopped the project.
1: Yes it is entirely political. Bigger charities do much bigger fraud. But when you are Trump or Bannon, you have to dot your i’s and cross your t’s knowing you are a target.
2: Exaggerating in business and law is lying
3: Donors complained (possibly a setup, but who knows), so govt got involved. Without NY wall donors willing to complain, NY AG would have no case.
4: It was stupid to lie, stupid to leave a paper trail, and stupid to be texting this stuff. If you are going to skirt the law, have some discretion, especially as a top 10 political target in the country.
If they had just said nothing, We Build the Wall would be a notable exemplary charity for their low overhead and effectiveness. But they blatantly lied and funneled money through a third party to hide it. They were asking for it. It was stupid and reckless. I like Bannon and have listened to his show for years, but he is a hot head, and reckless, and it caught up to him. Again. Dude is going to jail for this, if not the contempt charge.
Hopefully he will have some of those jurors that say the justice system is corrupt and they could never deliver a guilty verdict, even if they thought the accused was guilty.
Is he going to be incarcerated?
I have read that no donaters complained or were unhappy.
Was that done at the time the donations were taken or long after?
In NYC?
It’s criminal not civil. Settling would be civil.
Okay, but only this: I don’t believe they intentionally set out to deceive and seem to have done their level best not to blow their donations.
They just got in over their heads—strung out on zoning and environmental regulations and God only knows what other roadblocks an army of bureaucrats could dream up.
Add to this travel, a place to sleep and food—
I’m just reading this into the story, I really don’t know— just speculation. But this matter seems trivial at most. They’re prosecuted for not meeting their own standards, not legal government standards. Should government prosecute people who, say lapse on New Year’s resolutions?
This prosecution, if successful, will pretty much quash individual initiatives in the public sphere. There’s a law somewhere with which they’ll hang anyone by, and if not they’ll stretch it until it does.
Bottom line - the project is complicated and incurred some costs. Probably costs not planned for, and Bannon generously put himself on the hook for. So if expensed that for the security of America, good for him!
Think about this. We’ve to legit political prisoners in this country now whose only crime is to oppose the state.
They started the campaign with the “100% for the wall” slogan, and they took no money. Bannon came on board to help manage it, and he said they deserved some money to help live, and they did. But they didn’t change the promise about 100% for the wall, and then set up a corporation to funnel money to, so they could say they weren’t taking money, while receiving it through the other corporation.
You can read the indictment, Bannon screwed himself and the the original founders.
“I don’t believe they intentionally set out to deceive and seem to have done their level best not to blow their donations. They just got in over their heads”
100% agree. They brought Bannon in to help out and organize, but he was the one who then came up with the scheme to funnel hidden payments to them through a third party. If he came in and said get real, take a salary and just be open about it there would be no issue.
He screwed the original guys over. But they aren’t being indicted - that would have been cruel, and bad optics (disabled veteran).
Of course you would #TROLL!
Bannon didn’t start anything. Brian Kolfage started “We Fund the Wall” in 2018. He raised $9 million. Bannon came on later to advise and “help” with the money.
FWIW, if you think secretly funneling money through a shell company to avoid exposing that you about lied saying you weren’t taking any money while taking money is a technicality, it is indicative of the decline of Christian values in the country. When someone on your team steals, it is still theft, not a technicality.
I heard Bannon on a short Tucker Carlson clip saying he would be back tonight. I think. Might have been tomorrow night.
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