If a white nationalist robs a racist in the woods, can you hear me not giving a fuck?
Should we applaud the fact that the bigoted propagandist who gave us Breitbart, Milo Yiannopoulos and Donald Trump has been indicted for fraud? Or should we be happy that a bunch of xenophobic nitwits had their disposable income stolen? If ever there was a perplexing philosophical quandary, it is this.
Chronic greyscale disease sufferer Steve Bannon, the chief architect in charge of making America great again, has been indicted for defrauding a clusterfuck of Caucasians out of their border wall savings, according to federal prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department’s Southern District of New York.
According to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday, the SDNY Corruption Unit charged Bannon, along with co-conspirators Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. In a statement, SDNY’s Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss alleges that Bannon created a sham non-profit organization and shell companies that funneled over $1 million in donations from “We Build the Wall”—an online crowdfunding campaign that raised over $25 million to erect a privately funded version of Donald Trump’s border wall.
“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,” said Strauss. “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.”
“Not only did they lie to donors,” added Inspector-in-Charge Philip R. Bartlett. “They schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth.”
Before creating this alleged “volunteer organization,” Bannon served as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, a position he earned after years of inciting hate as editor in chief of Breitbart, which he called the “platform of the alt-right.”
Each of Bannon’s charges carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, which Bannon will never do. So hurrah, the man who gave a voice to Cool Ranch racism has been charged with a crime for which he will be pardoned by Donald Trump just before he leaves office. Hopefully, the feds will recover some of the money so the racist wall-funders can do something productive with their 401KKK earnings, like donating it to the Trump 2020 campaign or bailing out the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor.
Oh, wait...