Fmr. Trump adviser Steve Bannon charged with fraud

Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan joins Julia LaRoche to discuss the arrest of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon after he was charged with fraud for his “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign.

Video Transcript

JULIA LAROCHE: The news about the indictment of former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon in New York-- our Alexis Keenan has more details. Alexis, what can you tell us?

ALEXIS KEENAN: Hi, Julia. So yes, Steve Bannon, former Trump campaign advisor-- he was indicted in the Southern District of New York, along with three other named defendants, alleging that they misappropriated nonprofit donations for their personal use.

According to the indictment, Bannon and others misused this money from the nonprofit. And it's called the "We Build the Wall." It's still in existence. It's been in existence since about 2008. And instead of using the money for the purpose of its stated purpose, which is to privately fund the building of a border wall along the US and Mexico's southern border, instead they routed this money through a shell company, allegedly, through another nonprofit controlled by Bannon, as well as through two bank accounts of one of the named defendants.

What they did with it is they paid the founder of this non-profit $350,000, allegedly. His name is Brian Kolfage. And he's actually an Iraq war veteran, a triple amputee, and also a recipient of the Purple Heart. So this is the guy who is at the heart of this, along with Bannon and two others, saying that these funds were misused.

Now, we've also heard from the President, who reacted in the Oval Office, calling the indictment sad and also surprising. In a statement, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Yahoo Finance this. "As everyone knows, President Trump has no involvement in this project and felt it was only being done in order to showboat, and perhaps raise funds."

Now, the president has long said that this idea of this private border wall funding is not the way that he thinks it should be done. He thinks it should be done exclusively by the federal government. Julia.