With Bannon Indicted For Fraud, Trump Tries To Distance Himself

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

On Thursday morning, the news cycle exploded with yet another member of Donald Trump's inner circle facing federal charges, bringing the total to six Trump confidantes who've faced charges since 2016. This time it is Steve Bannon, who joins Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, and Michael Flynn in the Trump Indictment Club. Bannon was the Trump campaign's chief executive officer in 2016. He later followed Trump to the White House as chief strategist, a position he left in August 2017 to return to Breitbart News and attach himself to a series of grifts, including the one he is now facing charges for, which involved soliciting donations for a privately built border wall and then, according to prosecutors, fraudulently creating sham invoices and shell companies to enrich himself and other collaborators. It's quite similar to what the NRA was doing, as well. Makes you wonder if any other campaigns might have similar setups? Curious, indeed.

But back to Trump responding to the Bannon news. During an appearance with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, Donald Trump took a few questions and tried to put a Grand Canyon-sized gap between himself and Steve Bannon, a man he apparently barely knows now. Let's break down his responses here, because he gave a couple of rather implausible responses.

First up, he details how very "sad" it is that Bannon is facing charges, and the he pivots to a curious statement that is rather telling. In the clip below, Trump says, "I think it is surprising. But, this is something that by reading social media, by reading whatever it is, by speaking to Mike and Mike and all of them, I didn't like that project." Now why would Trump mention "social media"? Because on July 12, 2020, Trump tweeted:

Let's be clear here: By the time he sent that tweet, Trump was no doubt well aware that Bannon's wall project was under investigation. Bannon himself reportedly learned of the investigation in October 2019 and he and the other defendants took steps to further conceal the fraud. There can be little doubt that Trump knew and many are speculating that is precisely why Attorney General Bill Barr moved in June to fire Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney leading the investigation.

And let's take a moment to pause and reflect on Donald Trump saying he didn't like the privately funded border wall project because it was "showboating" and my goodness, if there is one thing Donald Trump hates, it's showboaters.

He hates showboaters so much that one of the cornerstones of his 2020 campaign is encouraging boat owners to fly Trump flags and organize boat parades weekly.

Speaking of boats, Bannon's partner in this scam was Brian Kolfage, who created the GoFundMe account to privately build a border wall. Kolfage was a proud member of the Trump boating community, using a boat that he bought with the funds scammed from the border wall project.

Ironically enough, Steve Bannon was arrested on a yacht anchored off the coast of Connecticut. The boat is owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and the arrest was carried out by … wait for it … federal postal inspectors.

Back to the presser. Trump took a few questions about Iraq, the Middle East, and Putin and flailed on them all. He brushed off concerns that Putin's political rival has been poisoned, casually bragged about taking Syria's oil (which is a war crime), and then pivoted to a question about Thursday morning's decision from Judge Victor Marrero of Federal District Court in Manhattan rejecting Trump's efforts to block the Manhattan District Attorney from reviewing his tax records. In short, Trump is the biggest victim in the history of this country. He whined incessantly that this has never been done to any other president. Of course, all other presidents have released their financial records before entering the Oval Office, but never mind. He's the biggest wittle victim of them all.

Oh, dear! Next thing you know someone might start demanding they see his birth certificate or college transcripts.

Lastly, there was one question about how he feels about six of his former top advisers facing felony charges since he took office and you guessed it, he had nothing but Obama, Obama, Obama in response.

Reporter Geoff Bennett: Respectfully, sir, it isn't just Steven Bannon, it's Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen. What's it say about your judgment, that these are the kinds of people …
Donald Trump: Well, I have no idea —
Reporter Geoff Bennet: And a culture of — lawlessness.
Donald Trump: Yeah, yeah. There was great lawlessness in the Obama administration. They spied on our campaign illegally. If you look at all the things and all the scandals they had, they had tremendous lawlessness. I was not involved in the project. I had no idea who was. I can tell you, I didn't know—the three people talked about were people I did not know. I don't believe I even met them.

Here's that clip.