NEW YORK: Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, returned to court on Tuesday ahead of his trial on criminal fraud charges over a push to fund Trump’s signature border wall, weeks after he was released from prison on a separate conviction. Bannon, 70, is scheduled to stand trial starting on Dec. 9 in New York state court in Manhattan. Prosecutors say he deceived donors who contributed more than $15 million in 2019 to a private fundraising drive to build a barrier along the US-Mexico border. He has pleaded not guilty.
At the hearing, Bannon’s defense lawyer John Carman urged Acting Justice April Newbauer to delay the trial until January due to additional evidence prosecutors were seeking to introduce.
Newbauer did not rule on that request, but said she would hold a hearing on Monday to determine whether the evidence could be presented at trial.
Construction of a border wall was a key element of Trump’s immigration policies during his presidency, supported by his fellow Republicans but opposed by Democrats and immigrant advocacy groups. Trump again made cracking down on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his successful 2024 campaign.
In the final hours of his first four-year term in January 2021, Trump pardoned Bannon on federal charges brought in 2020 over the same underlying conduct.
The following year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, secured a four-count indictment of Bannon on charges including money laundering, conspiracy and scheme to defraud.
Presidential pardons do not prohibit state prosecutions. If Bannon is convicted at trial, Trump would not be able to pardon him after returning to the White House on Jan. 20.
According to Bragg’s indictment, Bannon promised donors that all their money would go toward building Trump’s wall, but he concealed his role in diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars to the drive’s chief executive, Brian Kolfage, a decorated US Air Force veteran who had promised to take no salary.
Bannon’s lawyers have argued that Bannon transferred some funds to entities Kolfage controlled to reimburse him for reasonable expenses.
Kolfage pleaded guilty in April 2022 to federal fraud and tax charges, and is serving a 4-1/4-year prison sentence. Neither he nor two other men indicted alongside Bannon were pardoned by Trump.
Bannon was a key adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then served as his chief White House strategist in 2017 before a falling-out between them, which was later patched up. He also has played an instrumental role in right-wing media.
In a separate federal case, Bannon was convicted at trial in 2022 of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to turn over documents or testify to a Democratic-led House of Representatives committee that probed the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.
He was released on Oct. 29 from a low-security facility in Danbury, Connecticut, after serving a four-month sentence. He has called himself a “political prisoner” and resumed hosting his “War Room” podcast, known for its fierce criticism of Trump’s opponents.