Former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon will stand trial in December for his alleged involvement in a $15 million border wall fundraising scam, a Manhattan judge said Tuesday.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge April Newbauer announced that Bannon’s trial will begin Dec. 9 — just over a month after he’s expected to be released from federal custody for contempt of Congress.
Bannon, 70, did not attend the hearing — but his attorneys asked the judge to push back his trial date for them to have enough time to prep him after he’s released from federal jail in October.
The longtime Donald Trump ally and other organizers of the “We Build the Wall” campaign — a fundraiser to erect a US-Mexico border wall — were accused of lying to prospective donors by claiming not one penny would go to its president, US Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, prosecutors have said.
Kolfage — who lost his legs and right hand in a 2004 rocket attack in Iraq — raked in over $250,000 from the scheme, $140,000 of which Bannon allegedly laundered, according to prosecutors.
The trial is expected to include up to four days of testimony, the judge said — while Bannon’s lawyers said their case would take two days at most.
Bannon’s criminal fraud trial was slated to begin in May before Justice Juan Merchan — the same judge who handled Trump’s hush money conviction — before the case was postponed and reassigned to a different judge due to Merchan’s schedule.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering, conspiracy and scheming to defraud investors. If convicted, he’d face a maximum five-to-15-year prison sentence in the charity fraud case.
Bannon is serving a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Trump pardoned Bannon in January 2021 for the alleged crime, but the pardon only covers federal cases.
He’s slated to return to court on Nov. 12.
