Donald Trump’s most loyal ally and former adviser Steve Bannon, pleaded guilty to laundering money from the “We Build the Wall” fundraiser in 2022, thus avoiding 15 years in prison. Accepting the plea deal, the Manhattan grand jury sentenced him to a three-year conditional discharge and barred him from serving as a director for any nonprofit in New York State.
According to the sentence, Bannon, along with three others, is guilty of deceiving U.S. donors with a fake campaign organized during Trump’s first term in office in support of building the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The former adviser to the U.S. president then allegedly pocketed nearly $15 million, although he said in court that he did not personally receive anything.
Bannon had already been indicted in a federal case for similar reasons in 2020 and then pardoned by Trump in 2021. This time dealing with state charges, the U.S. president will not be able to intervene.
Last year, Bannon spent four months in a Florida jail for ignoring a subpoena to appear before Congress during the committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill. He managed to get out in time to attend the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he cheered the audience and reiterated his support for Trump.
