Steve Bannon & Brian Kolfage Accused of Stealing Millions
Steve Bannon and Brian Kolfage were arrested for stealing millions of dollars from nonprofit organizations they set up to raise money to build a high fenced wall along the Mexican border. They were also charged with Federal crimes for trying to cover their tracks after their nonprofits got scrutinized by the media. The lead defendant in the Bannon case was not Bannon. An officer in the US Airforce named Brian Kolfage was the mastermind of this conspiracy to raise $1 billion in donations to build a wall.
Kolfage only ended up raising about $25 million. Kolfage used about $6 million to build a half-mile steel fence on privately owned land near El Paso. Kolfage doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to himself, his wife, and his co-conspirators while telling potential donors that he was not taking a salary. Kolfage transferred millions to other non-profits that were used to hide Kolfage’s $20K a month salary.
Brian Kolfage has hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Instagram followers.
Kolfage describes himself online in the third person: “When Senior Airman Kolfage was on his second deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, on September 11, 2004 he awoke in the afternoon, left his tent to get some water and walked no more than 25 feet when the airbase came under a rocket attack. It would be the last time he would walk on the legs he was born with. A 107mm rocket shell exploded about three feet from Airman Kolfage. He was thrown several feet in the air and landed against a wall of sandbags, still conscious, and began calling for help. Airman Kolfage’s best friend was thrown from his bed during the attack. He heard the screams and rushed outside to find his friend bloody, mangled, and clinging to life.
The Airman and a medic rushed to help Airman Kolfage, who was struggling to breathe with only one lung after the other had collapsed. Despite suffering multiple amputations and the looming possibility of death, Airman Kolfage still maintained incredible strength and courage throughout his recovery. Incredibly, Brian walked out of Walter Reed only 11 months after being injured; this is unheard of. Till this day he is still the most severely wounded Airman to survive any war. In 2014 Brian was bestowed the most honorable award that a wounded warrior can receive, the George C. Lang Award for Courage, not only for his fearlessness, but his selflessness actions of taking care of other wounded veterans who were in need of mentoring.”
The Office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York described Kolfage in the following way: Kolfage “defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense. While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, they secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle. Not only did he lie to donors, he schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations, showing no regard for the law.
This case should serve as a warning to other fraudsters that no one is above the law, not even a disabled war veteran or a millionaire political strategist.” Ouch! That hurt!
Kolfage Hires Attorney Harvey Steinberg
After Kolfage was indicted he hired attorney Harvey Steinberg, out of Denver. Defendant Kolfage then launched his own online criminal defense strategy. It was probably against the legal advice of his attorney. No attorney would advise his client to go public and launch into a tirade against the United States Attorney’s Office. Although today many criminal defendants in white-collar cases have gone to the Internet to defend themselves. Before the Internet was invented it was unheard of for a criminal defendant to talk about their cases to the media. Today you have guys like Roger Stone posted a picture of the Federal Judge in his case in crosshairs.
The prosecutors sought a gag order and sanctions against Roger Stone for his crosshairs. Prosecutors in the Second Circuit have asked Kolfage to control his keyboard. Prosecutors filed the following letter with the Federal Judge Torres: “Since the day after Kolfage was arrested, he has made a steady stream of public statements via Facebook regarding this case. In total, Kolfage has made at least a dozen statements about this case, which has more than 630,000 followers and can be viewed by anyone who visits his page. Kolfage has also streamed “live” videos featuring discussions of the case. The statements have contained expressions of opinion about the defendant’s innocence and the merits of the case, among other subjects, and many of them have been highly inflammatory.
The Government drew many of these posts to the attention of Kolfage’s attorney, and expressed concern about their potential effect on witnesses and victims (many of whom follow Kolfage’s social media accounts), as well as the potential to taint a future jury pool. Unfortunately, since bringing these concerns to the attention of counsel, the posts have continued unabated since that conversation, and the Government has been given no assurances by counsel that Kolfage intends to refrain from such statements in the future. The Government does not seek any relief at this time, but it may do so if any defendant persists in making extrajudicial statements that are likely to interfere with the Court’s ability to conduct a fair trial with an impartial jury in this case.”
The letter to Judge Torres was filed with the Federal Court on August 28th. I just checked the Facebook page of Kolfage and 10 hours ago Kolfage posted the following: ” The Southern District of New York indictment against ‘We Build The Wall’ founders is a political hit job. The Southern District is in bed with the Soros family who is a 100% open-borders globalist. Soros is actively involved in funding open border elected officials. The weaponized judicial system going after Trump and his associates is the most politically corrupted witch hunt our country has ever seen. These corrupt globalists will do anything to protect their own in order to regain power and intimidate people who threaten their agenda.
This is absolutely a war for control over the most powerful country in the world and our country is being destroyed right now from within by the corrupted judicial system that is funded by Soros elected officials. FOLLOW THE MONEY!”
Kolfage should control his urge to rant against the people who will decide whether he is going to be sentenced to 3 years, 4 years, or 24 years in federal prison if he is convicted. He is taking a big gamble that his online rants will lead to an acquittal. Federal prosecutors recommended 9 long years for Roger Stone before Attorney General Barr intervened and asked for much less. Is Kolfage banking on a Presidential pardon if he gets acquitted? Trump may not even be in the office by the time the Kolfage / Bannon case goes to trial.
Kolfage is married to a blond bombshell and has two young children. It has been reported that Kolfage’s wife spent some of the wall money on boob jobs and plastic surgery. Does Kolfage really want to drag his augmented wife, who will be leered at by other inmates, and his children into the visiting room at the Federal prison camp in Miami every week? Kolfage lives in Miramar Beach so he would most likely want to be locked up in Miami. I knew a few guys who were locked up in Miami. I was locked up in Otisville, NY, the prison of choice for millionaires and billionaires from New York. Miami also got many big money guys, such as hedge fund insider trader Mathew Martoma, who just did 9 years in Miami.
The big money guys in Miami chipped in to rent an apartment near the prison so that their families could sleep overnight near the prison when they flew in from New York. There were many guys from Otisville who transferred to Miami in order to get into the drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, which cut time off your sentence. Otisville didn’t have this program. Kolfage should spare himself the trouble of spending many years in prison and start “cooperating” with the Feds and rat out his buddies. The first to drop the dime gets the least time!
