(Update 8/22/20: Thanks to Tengrain for adding this article to Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Roundup! Please leave a comment (I know it's clunky but I got tired of the Chinese spam and I abhor anonymous trolls...))
Oh, to wake up this morning to the news about yet another Republican strategist/VIP getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Take it away, Southern District of New York!
Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Philip R. Bartlett, Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”), announced the unsealing of an indictment charging BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO, and TIMOTHY SHEA for their roles in defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as “We Build the Wall” that raised more than $25 million. The defendants were arrested this morning. KOLFAGE will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Hope T. Cannon in the Northern District of Florida. BANNON will be presented today in the Southern District of New York. BADOLATO will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Wilson in the Middle District of Florida. SHEA will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix in the District of Colorado. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in the Southern District of New York.
Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction. While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle. We thank the USPIS for their partnership in investigating this case, and we remain dedicated to rooting out and prosecuting fraud wherever we find it.”
The USPIS? Oh yes, by the by the Postal Service DOES have its own police force! Considering they've been around since DAY ONE of the United States (actually they date back to 1772 before the Declaration of Independence!) created to deter mail theft or any fraudulent use of mail, they are the oldest law enforcement agency on the books. The Mail Cops can arrest people, and take them to court for anything ranging from pilfering boxes off of porches to committing financial fraud through mailed-in donations to fake non-profits.
And the kind of fraud these clowns were involved with triggered a lot of red alerts with the postal police:
Starting in approximately December 2018, BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO, and TIMOTHY SHEA, and others, orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors, including donors in the Southern District of New York, in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign ultimately known as “We Build The Wall” that raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States. In particular, to induce donors to donate to the campaign, KOLFAGE repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would “not take a penny in salary or compensation” and that “100% of the funds raised . . . will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose” because, as BANNON publicly stated, “we’re a volunteer organization.”
Those representations were false. In truth, KOLFAGE, BANNON, BADOLATO, and SHEA received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds from We Build the Wall, which they each used in a manner inconsistent with the organization’s public representations. In particular, KOLFAGE covertly took for his personal use more than $350,000 in funds that donors had given to We Build the Wall, while BANNON, through a non-profit organization under his control (“Non-Profit-1”), received over $1 million from We Build the Wall, at least some of which BANNON used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in BANNON’s personal expenses. To conceal the payments to KOLFAGE from We Build the Wall, KOLFAGE, BANNON, BADOLATO, and SHEA devised a scheme to route those payments from We Build the Wall to KOLFAGE indirectly through Non-Profit-1 and a shell company under SHEA’s control, among other avenues. They did so by using fake invoices and sham “vendor” arrangements, among other ways, to ensure, as KOLFAGE noted in a text message to BADOLATO, that his pay arrangement remained “confidential” and kept on a “need to know” basis...
Oh, and of course two of these crooks were Florida guys. Just to keep it crazy as usual.
A lot of this wouldn't have happened if trump had not been in the White House, abusing the office of the Presidency to push for a goddamned border wall to shill to his voting base to prove he was being tough against "those people" of the Dread OTHER.
It also is part of the ongoing reality that there's a lot of people who exist in trump's orbit - Paul Manafort, trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, a lot of players in the 2016 campaign tied into Russian sabotage of the elections - who keep getting caught committing felonies especially along the lines of bank fraud, tax fraud, other financial misdeeds, and now mail fraud.
That is the world trump comes from: Not a world of business but a world of con artists and thievery, surrounded by people who are driven to line their own pockets at the expense of everyone else.
We're talking about trump whose family Foundation had to shut down because it was violating a ton of regulations set in place to ensure not-for-profit entities would truly spend toward charities and public good.
And how can any of this be shocking to the Republicans STILL eager to support trump, while their own party routinely gets caught committing financial crimes at the state and federal level so often? There's a scandal in Ohio right now involving the Republican State Speaker caught in a bribery/kickback deal with a utility company that's ensnared so many of his own colleagues and is costing the state's residents in hiked fees and wasted tax dollars.
But what did you expect from a Republican Party that worships unregulated greed as a virtue?
Of course the Republicans - from the elected officials to the power brokers to the lobbyists all the way down the line - are going to get caught over and over again committing acts of fraud.
It's all profit even after they go to jail, when they come back out hailed as martyrs against the evil libruls, and they can get a rich book deal and continue popping up on Fox Not-News as part of the tour to raise even more money on questionable schemes to keep lining their pockets.
Because there's still enough Republican voters out there blinded by racism, sexism and pure hate who never care to learn how their "heroes" are ripping them off every donation, every hat sale, every book signing, every way to squeeze the money out of them until they're broke and dead.
That's how fraud thrives in this nation: The willingness of the victims to keep pouring more into the scam.
Even the Postal Service can't save them from themselves. I doubt God can.
And the trumpian con job rolls on to the next ripoff.
