Unearthed clip shows Stephen Bannon joking about 'Build the Wall' fraud in 2019
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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A million dollar yacht would certainly fall into the "lavish lifestyle" category. Bannon also jokes in the video that he and Kolfage were filming from the south of France, quickly clarifying they're actually in Sunland, New Mexico. Although given the way things have turned out, Saint-Tropez is surely within the realm of possibility.
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