The border wall Steve Bannon wasn't going to build

Steve Bannon took off his mask right out of court in New York and yelled, "This whole fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall!" Last week, the former White House councilor was arrested and accused of defrauding, along with three partners, donors of a campaign that promotes the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico. The anti-immigration symbol recently became one of the flags of the controversial key figure of the extreme right in the United States and promoter of a populist and racist discourse. When the wall was just a project, the money to build it was gone.

The investigation reveals that through the organization We Build the Wall Bannon and three other people raised 25 million dollars through a website and used the resources for personal matters. The organization became extremely popular since Donald Trump became president of the United States and promoted the construction of the wall to obtain public resources. The group founded by veteran Brian Kolfage argued that Trump needed help from the private sector to hasten the lifting of the structure. The complaint, filed by the New York Prosecutor's Office, puts the magnifying glass particularly on the founder of the movement and his relationship with Bannon.

Kolfage, a veteran who lost both legs and an arm in the Iraq war, had opened a crowdfounding page on the GoFoundMe platform to start collecting the resources in 2017. He then assured that he would not take “a penny” of the proceeds and that he would lead the organization without receiving a salary, he even assured that he was coordinating with the White House to begin the construction of the wall. The organization was offering to buy a brick for the wall for $ 100 with the inscribed name of the donor. "You won't last forever, but your brick will," read one of the ads on the web. In 2018, Bannon took an interest in the organization and teamed up with Kolfage.

The Prosecutor's Office points out that Bannon gave We Build the Wall a business boost and that through another non-profit organization the diversion of funds and the falsification of invoices began. The former Trump adviser would have received up to a million dollars. In addition, Kolfage reportedly started receiving a monthly compensation of several thousand dollars for running the site. Both Bannon and Kolfage saw the debacle coming. The Prosecutor's Office assures that the organization realized a few months ago that it was being investigated and stopped making money movements.

About 24 hours before Bannon was taken into custody aboard a yacht off the Connecticut shoreline, he had appeared on his War Room podcast chatting with Kolfage about the wall. The former presidential adviser interviewed the founder of We Build The Wall to inform his followers that they had stopped receiving donations through the GoFoundMe website and that they now only received the money through the official website. Kolfage accused the crowdfounding platform of censorship by not allowing him to open another page to, according to him, raise funds for the Black Lives Matter movement.

We Build the Wall ensures on its website that it has already started the construction of the wall in two places: in Sunland Park, New Mexico and in Mission, Texas. The organization offers private tours for $ 20 for the chunk allegedly raised in New Mexico. Google satellite images, updated in 2019, still do not show any indication of the wall in either location. "We are at a good point, as long as President Trump is re-elected," Kolfage responded to Bannon in that last appearance, before the arrest of both, about the progress in the construction of the border wall and assured that they already go more than 700 kilometers installed.

Trump has as one of the pillars of his re-election campaign the promise to build the wall. Last Tuesday, the president traveled to Yuma (Arizona) to hold a rally at the airport in the border city where a segment of the project has already been built. There he took the opportunity to resume his speech against immigration and again assured that Mexico was going to pay for the construction of the wall. The White House says that so far 400 kilometers of fence have been built on a border of more than 3,000 kilometers. "I have not been in contact with him [Bannon] in a long period of time," Trump said after learning of the arrest of his former counselor last Thursday.

Bannon's plans in Europe

Steve Bannon has for years been a spokesperson for the extreme right. In 2007, he founded the Breitbart News, a media outlet that became highly relevant when Trump launched his campaign in 2016. Bannon mobilized the base of voters who already followed him in favor of the Republican, so his arrival in the White House as advisor to the new president it was not a surprise. He barely stayed there a year, due to his differences with other members of the Administration. But his departure gave him the opportunity to embark on the Old Continent. Europe offered him the possibility of promoting the populist movement and he set his eyes on Italy. There he had planned the installation of an academy to promote the populist right, he contacted the League and the 5-Star Movement and foresaw the foundation of the school in a monastery south of Rome. The whole project came to a halt when the Ministry of Culture opposed the use of the old building - 800 years old - for the strategist's project and then the coronavirus arrived.