Donald Trump has pardoned Steve Bannon in one of his final acts from the White House, a senior administration official said overnight Tuesday.
Bannon, 67, had helped Trump win election in 2016 and was a senior White House adviser. In August he pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded MAGA donors to ‘We Build the Wall,’ an online fundraising campaign that raised $25 million.
The clemency is expected to come as part of a wave of around 150 pardons and commutations Trump, who leaves office on Wednesday, will issue during his final hours in office, according to a source.
Trump pardoned rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black who were prosecuted on federal weapons offenses, as well as former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a 28-year prison term on corruption charges, a senior administration official said.
He is also expected to pardon Elliott Broidy, a prominent fundraiser for the Republican Party, has been charged in an illicit lobbying campaign aimed at getting the Trump administration to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar looting of a Malaysian state investment fund.
Bannon fell out with Trump after he was quoted calling the president’s son Don Jr. ‘treasonous’ and daughter Ivanka ‘dumb as a brick’. Trump said then: ‘Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency.’
But they have lately rekindled their relationship as Trump sought support for his unproven claims of voter fraud, an official familiar with the situation said. White House officials are said to have advised Trump against pardoning Bannon.
Donald Trump has decided to pardon Steve Bannon, reports said Tuesday. The former White House Chief Strategist, center, exits the Manhattan Federal Court on August 20 last year
Trump appeared to have been dissuaded from pardoning himself or members of his family
Two sources familiar with the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Trump appeared to have been dissuaded from pardoning himself or members of his family.
He is not expected to pardon lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was at the forefront of unsuccessful efforts to get the results of the 2020 presidential election overturned.
Trump previously pardoned former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI about his conversation with the former Russian ambassador.
He commuted the prison term for Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress during its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Lil Wayne pleaded guilty last month to possessing a loaded, gold-plated handgun when his chartered jet landed in Miami in December 2019. He faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison at a Jan. 28 hearing in Miami.
The rapper appeared to support Trump during last year’s presidential campaign when he tweeted a photo of himself with the president and said he backed Trump’s criminal justice reform program and economic plan for African Americans.
Trump (left) poses for a picture with Lil Wayne (right) when they met in October 2020
Trump pardoned rapper Kodak Black who were prosecuted on federal weapons offenses
He also pardoned former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a 28-year prison term on corruption charges, a senior administration official said
Trump is also expected to pardon Elliott Broidy, pictured, a prominent fundraiser for the Republican Party, has been charged in an illicit lobbying campaign
Bannon was in August pulled from a luxury yacht and arrested on allegations that he and three associates ripped off donors trying to fund a southern border wall.
The organizers of the ‘We Build The Wall’ group portrayed themselves as eager to help the president build a ‘big beautiful’ barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, as he promised during the 2016 campaign.
They raised more than $25 million from thousands of donors and pledged that 100% of the money would be used for the project.
But according to the criminal charges, much of the money never made it to the wall. Instead, it was used to line the pockets of group members, including Bannon, who served in Trump’s White House and worked for his campaign.
He allegedly took over $1 million, using some to secretly pay co-defendant Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran who lost both legs in a mortar attack in Iraq and the founder of the project, and to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.
‘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,’ said Philip R. Bartlett, inspector-in-charge of the New York office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which arrested Bannon.
After the arrest, Trump quickly distanced himself from Bannon and the project.
‘When I read about it, I didn’t like it. I said this is for government, this isn’t for private people. And it sounded to me like showboating,’ he told reporters at the White House.
A voice of nationalist, outsider conservatism, Bannon led the conservative Breitbart News before being tapped to serve as chief executive officer of Trump’s campaign in its critical final months.
He later served as chief strategist during the turbulent early days of Trump’s administration and was at the forefront of many of its most contentious policies, including its travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries.
But Bannon, who clashed with other top advisers, was pushed out after less than a year. And his split with Trump deepened after he was quoted in a 2018 book making critical remarks about some of Trump’s adult children. Bannon apologized and soon stepped down as chairman of Breitbart.
Bannon, who served in the Navy and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and as a Hollywood producer before turning to politics, now hosts a pro-Trump podcast called ‘War Room,’ which began during the president’s impeachment proceedings and has continued during the pandemic.
Trump had been expected to grant clemency to rapper Lil Wayne in a final wave of more than 100 pardons and commutations on his last full day in office
Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon listens during his arraignment hearing for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering inside Manhattan Federal Court in August last year
Sources had already confirmed a New York Times report Tuesday that the list of pardons and commutations is expected to include former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, 76, who was convicted of corruption charges in 2015.
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, was not expected to get a pardon, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Justice Department in 2019 asked Britain to extradite Assange to the United States to face charges that he conspired to hack U.S. government computers and violated an espionage law.
A British judge ruled two weeks ago Assange should not be extradited to the United States, saying his mental health problems meant he would be at risk of suicide.
Lil Wayne, 38, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., pleaded guilty in federal court in December to illegally possessing a firearm and faced up to 10 years in prison. He has expressed support for Trump’s criminal justice reform efforts.
Kodak Black, 23, who was born Bill Kahan Kapri, is in federal prison for making a false statement in order to buy a firearm.
A voice of nationalist, outsider conservatism, Bannon led the conservative Breitbart News before being tapped to serve as chief executive officer of Trump’s campaign in its critical final months. They are pictured alongside Elon Musk in 2017
The two men had fallen out after Bannon was quoted calling Don Jr. ‘treasonous’ and Ivanka ‘dumb as a brick’. Trump said then: ‘Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency’
Bannon was in August pulled from a luxury yacht and arrested on allegations that he and three associates ripped off donors trying to fund a southern border wall