Unearthed clip shows Stephen Bannon joking about 'Build the Wall' fraud in 2019

(Image credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

published 21 August 2020

Stephen Bannon: master prognosticator or just really dumb?

In an unearthed clip from a 2019 "We Build the Wall" telethon, Stephen Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, jokingly brags about being on a "million dollar yacht" with Brian Kolfage, who Bannon quips paid for the yacht with "all that money" from the "Build the Wall" campaign. The joke, an already questionable attempt at humor, is considerably less funny given Bannon, Kolfage, and two others were arrested this week for defrauding donors to the "We Build the Wall" fundraiser.

The campaign, which raised over $25 million to build a wall on the United States' southern border with Mexico, was led by four men who said the money would go toward the wall's construction. Prosecutors now say hundreds of thousands of dollars were "secretly" passed to Kolfage to fund his "lavish lifestyle," while Bannon allegedly received $1 million, using "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to cover personal expenses.

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Marianne is The Weekâ€™s Social Media Editor. She is a native Tennessean and recent graduate of Ohio University, where she studied journalism and political science. Marianne has previously written for The Daily Beast, The Crime Report, and The Moroccan Times.

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