Steve Bannon Bragged He Was Stealing ‘We Build The Wall’ Money During Fundraiser For It

There used to be a You Can’t Make This Shit Up file. It started out taking over the entire cabinet, then grew to the size of several office buildings, then had its own island, then occupied the interior of a small moon. Now, we just accept the fact that we live in the file, a kind of deranged matrix existence that reality morphed into when Donald Trump came into our lives. While Trump’s followers swallowed the blue pill, and chose to remain in oblivion, giving Trump their votes and their money, the rest of us have been choking on the red pill, and what it reveals.

With that in mind, here’s the newest wrinkle in the Trump world fabric of unbelievability. Steve Bannon not only stole $1 Million from the We Build The Wall fund — he bragged about it.

John Whitehouse is the news director at Media Matters.

Folks, this really happened. pic.twitter.com/EviEJCGvs7

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 21, 2020

That’s from last summer, the June, 2019 Wall-a-Thon. You remember how Jerry Lewis did telethons for muscular dystrophy? That was to help disabled children, this is to help Steve Bannon and his buddies live in Italian villas and fly private jets.

Bannon was arrested Thursday and looked a bit dazed in court, but since then he’s rallied. He announced to the world Friday, via his podcast, that he intends to fight what he calls “a political hit job.” Talking Points Memo:

“This fiasco is a total political hit job,” Bannon said Friday on his conservative podcast, “War Room,” insisting that he would not “back down” amid pressure.

“I’m in this for the long-haul. I’m in this for the fight,” Bannon said. “I’m going to continue to fight.” […]

The former Trump adviser insisted on his podcast Friday that his arrest was an attempt to “stop and intimidate people” who have supported the Trump administration’s effort to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and who, as he put it, “have Trump’s back.”

Bannon described another of the three defendants in the case, Brian Kolfage, as “an American hero.” Bannon had featured Kolfage on his show the day before his arrest. According to the indictment, Kolfage, who was also involved in the alleged scheme, had falsely promised donors that the campaign would use all of its more than $25 million in contributions to help construct the border wall. […]

Bannon was also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and said Friday on his podcast that the charges were “nonsense.”

And while Trump has distanced himself from Bannon, Bannon for his part, has been telling people how they talk frequently. Coffee boy or cohort, you decide. And don’t forget Kris Kobach, telling the New York Times that Trump said to the We Build The Wall people, “the project has my blessing, and you can tell the media that.” He did, Donald, he did.

Here is Steve Bannon’s six hour telethon. You might want to listen to a few minutes of it just to get the flavor. This is epic, cinematic scam at its finest. This is the Lawrence of Arabia of bullshit, complete with vistas of the Mexican-U.S. desert. If Obi-Wan thought Mos Eisley was a “wretched hive of of scum and villainy,” it’s because he never encountered the Trump administration. Maybe the reason Bannon wears multiple shirts is because he’s just stolen them off the Trumpers backs.