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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Stephen K. Bannon will face fresh criminal indictment in New York and is expected to surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday for the proceedings, The Washington Post quoted people familiar with the matter as saying.
His appearance
is coming weeks after he was convicted of contempt of Congress and nearly two
years after then President Donald Trump issued a federal pardon in relation to
his conviction in a federal fraud case.
What is Steve Bannon being investigated for?
Prosecutors
may review certain aspects of the federal case in which Bannon was pardoned,
The Washington Post quoted people family with the situation who pleaded
anonymity to discuss a sealed indictment.
Prosecutors
at the time of Bannon’s conviction said he and several others defrauded
contributors to a private, $25 million fundraising effort, called “We Build the
Wall,” taking funds that donors were told would support Trump’s border war
project on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a
February, 2021 report, The Washington Post reported that the Manhattan District
Attorney’s Office has been evaluating Bannon’s alleged involvement in that
scheme after he was pardoned by Trump.
The federal
pardon cannot prohibit state prosecutions.
Who pardoned Steve Bannon after his 2020 conviction?
The former
White House chief strategist during the Trump presidency pleaded not guilty to
the federal charges in August 2020, after officials took him off a luxury
yacht. Mr. Bannon was accused of pocketing $1 million in the scheme.
Bannon was
one of 140 people pardoned by Trump in the last hours of his presidency. Bannon
was convicted in July for contempt of Congress relating to his refusal to honor
a subpoena to appear before the House Select Committee investigating the January
6 violent attack on Congress.
"Just
days after being swatted three different times by deranged thugs from New York
City inspired by the Biden Administration to assassinate me by police, the
Soros-backed DA has now decided to pursue phony charges against me 60 days
before the midterm election because WarRoom is the major source of the MAGA
grassroots movement," Bannon said a in statement on Tuesday responding to
the allegations, shared by his WarRoom podcast colleague Jayne Zirkie, the Washington
Examiner reported.
"The
SDNY did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the
election. It didn't work then, it certainly won't work now. This is nothing
more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice
system," the statement continued.
"They
are coming after all of us, not only President Trump and myself. I am never
going to stop fighting. In fact, I have not yet begun to fight. They will have
to kill me first," Bannon's statement concluded.