Bannon and Friends Separate Fools from their Money

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Steve Bannon, the executive director of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and a former political strategist with the White House, and three associates were arrested last week by agents of the US Postal Service and each charged with one count of committing wire fraud and one count of money laundering.  If convicted the four men, all conservative political activists, could each face up to twenty years in prison.

Bannon, age 66, is the former head of Breitbart News, and has a history of working in show business projects as well as with right-wing political projects.   Also arrested were Brian Kolfage (38) of the state of Florida, a motivational speaker and military veteran who lost both legs and an arm in Iraq, Timothy Shea (49) of Colorado, who sells a Trump-related energy drink, and Andrew Badolato (56) of Florida, a venture capitalist.

The four had started a crowd-funding site on the internet called  "We Build the Wall" to supposedly raise funds to help build a section of wall along the US southern border.  They had reportedly raised over $25 million and were still collecting money a few days before their arrests.  The government complaint contends that they used fraudulent business practices to redirect portions of that money to themselves.

The group had promised to build as much as a hundred miles of new border wall, but they only managed to complete less than five miles.  Donors had been filing complaints about the group with the state of Florida and the FBI for the past year.

The "We Build the Wall" effort had been praised by Donald Trump, Jr., but his father had complained about the project saying that he felt it was being done to make him look bad.

Steve Bannon is out of jail after having posted a five million dollar bond, and he is labeling his arrest as a "political hit job."  Meanwhile thousands of donors to the project are undoubtedly feeling that they have been hit with a political con job.

Some things never change, and this is one of them:  fools and their money are soon parted!