Steve Bannon is expected to surrender on Thursday to New York authorities to face state charges in an indictment that remains sealed, according to a person familiar with the case.
The onetime political adviser to former President Donald J. Trump was pardoned by him in a case connected to a crowd-funded border wall, but the Manhattan district attorney’s office opened its own investigation.
Bannon called the as yet unclear charges “phony” in a statement and reiterating the oft-quoted Trump accusation that all investigations against him and his supporters are a witch hunt, said, “They are coming after all of us. I have not yet begun to fight.”
It is believed that the charges stem from his work with We Build the Wall Inc., a fund-raising operation set up to help fulfill the former president’s promise to create a physical barrier between the United States and Mexico.
Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Bannon in January 2021 before he could be brought to trial but the Manhattan district attorney’s office, then headed by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., began its own investigation after the presidential pardon, which covered only federal charges. The new indictment was first reported by The Washington Post.
The authorities said Mr. Bannon hatched a plot to defraud donors with three other men: Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran and triple amputee from Miramar Beach, Fla.; Andrew Badolato, a venture capitalist from Sarasota, Fla.; and Timothy Shea, an entrepreneur from Castle Rock, Colo.
