While Steve Bannon serving a four-month federal prison sentence, the conservative strategist now has a December date for a different trial in New York, where he is accused of plotting to deceive donors who gave money to build a border wall with Mexico.
With Bannon excused from court because of his arrest, a judge on Tuesday set jury selection to begin Dec. 9 in the “We Build the Wall” case.
The trial was expected in September. It was delayed because Bannon, a longtime ally of the former President Donald TrumpIt is in a federal penitentiary in Connecticut after being convicted of defying a congressional subpoena related to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
With his release scheduled for late October, Judge April Newbauer said she wanted to give Bannon enough time to meet with his lawyers and review the case, trial evidence and things she described as “difficult to address during visits from lawyers in prison.”
After the jury is seated and opening statements are given, testimony is expected to take about a week.
Bannon’s attorneys, John Carman and Joshua Kirshner, declined to comment after the trial.
Prosecutors say Bannon helped funnel more than $100,000 to a co-founder of the nonprofit WeBuildTheWall Inc. who received a secret salary, even though Bannon and others promised donors that every dollar would be used to help build a wall along the US-Mexico border.
“All the money you give goes to building the wall,” Bannon said at a June 2019 fundraiser, according to the indictment. He does not accuse him of pocketing part of the money himself, but of facilitating clandestine payments.
Bannon, 70, has pleaded not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges. He called them “nonsense.”
However, the accusations followed him from court to court. He initially faced federal charges, until the indictment was interrupted when Trump pardoned Bannon in the last hours of his presidential term.
But presidential pardons apply only to federal charges, not state ones. And Bannon found himself faced with state charges when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took up the “We Built the Wall” issue.
Three other men were not pardoned and are serving federal prison sentences in the case. Two pleaded guilty; a third Was sentenced on trial.
Meanwhile, a federal jury in Washington Bannon sentenced in 2022 for contempt of Congress, finding that he refused to answer questions under oath or provide documents to the House investigation into the Capitol insurrection.
Bannon’s lawyers argued that he did not refuse to cooperate, but that there was uncertainty about the dates for doing so.
An appeals court panel maintained his conviction, and the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute offer to delay his prison sentence while your appeal continues.
He turned himself in on July 1 to begin serving his sentence, calling himself a “political prisoner” and criticizing Attorney General Merrick Garland.
