Former Donald Trump adviser and far-right media personality Steve Bannon is expected to plead guilty after he was criminally charged with fraud stemming from fundraising for construction of a piece of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
A plea deal with New York prosecutors, reportedly reached roughly three weeks before a trial was set to begin in Manhattan, will allow him to avoid jail time, a defense attorney told Law360.
A hearing in Manhattan criminal court is scheduled Tuesday.
“It is anticipated that Mr. Bannon will plead guilty tomorrow under an agreement with the district attorney and the court that he will not receive a sentence that includes any jail time,” attorney John F. Carman told the publication.
Steve Gruber, an anchor on Bannon’s media network Real America’s Voice, quickly shared the news, stating that “a very reliable source” confirmed the arrangement, which “will keep him out of jail and in the War Room,” the name of Bannon’s program.
Attorneys for Bannon were not immediately available for comment. The Independent has also requested comment from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
A trial in Manhattan criminal court – scheduled to begin March 4 following a series of delays – was set to examine whether Bannon deceived donors in a dubious “We Build the Wall” campaign, echoing charges brought by federal prosecutors in a case that fell apart with Trump’s presidential pardon in 2021.
Bannon had initially pleaded not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges in the New York case.
We Build the Wall raised more than $25 million which organizers said would help privately construct a piece of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but prosecutors accused the group’s officers of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their own pockets.
In 2020, federal agents arrested Bannon while he was on a yacht off the Connecticut coast. Trump’s last-minute pardon before the end of his first term in the White House derailed the case against him.
Meanwhile, his co-defendant Brian Kolfage was sentenced to more than four years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, among other charges.
In 2022, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Bannon in a scheme that prosecutors claim netted “$15 million from thousands of donors across the country based on false promises.”
Bannon did, however, spend four months in prison after he was convicted of contempt of Congress for dodging subpoenas for his testimony to the House select committee investigation January 6, which spent months investigating the events surrounding the Capitol attack fueled by Trump’s election lies.
He was released from prison days before Election Day last year.
