NEW YORK (Reuters) -Steve Bannon, a onetime top strategist to former U.S. President Donald Trump, on Thursday surrendered to New York authorities to face state charges in an indictment related to Trump’s effort to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The charges are expected to be announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Bannon, 68, and three other men had been charged by federal prosecutors in August 2020 with defrauding donors in a private $25 million fundraising drive, known as “We Build the Wall,” to help build Trump’s signature wall.
Bannon pleaded not guilty to that indictment, including to charges he diverted close to $1 million for personal expenses.
But his indictment was dismissed after Trump pardoned Bannon in January 2021, in the final hours of his presidency.
Presidential pardons, however, cover federal charges and do not prohibit state prosecutions.
“This is an irony,” Bannon said outside Bragg’s office. “On the very day the mayor of this city has a delegation down on the border, they’re persecuting people here (for trying to) stop them at the border.”
Bannon is expected to be arraigned on the state charges at 2:15 p.m. EDT in a New York criminal court in Manhattan.
He is being charged less than two months after being convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from a House of Representatives committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The state probe of Bannon began under Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance.
Bragg also inherited Vance’s probe into Trump’s namesake company, the Trump Organization, which along with longtime Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg was charged with tax violations in July 2021.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August to a variety of tax charges, and the Trump Organization faces a trial scheduled to start in October.
Bannon would not be the first former Trump ally charged in both federal and state court.
In March 2019, Vance brought fraud charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort that were similar to charges on which Manafort had been convicted in federal court and sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison.
But a New York judge dismissed the charges nine months later because they amounted to double jeopardy, or trying someone twice for the same conduct.
Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020.
Double jeopardy may not apply to the Bannon case because he never went to trial on the federal charges.
The leader of the wall campaign, Brian Kolfage, pleaded guilty in April to wire fraud conspiracy and tax charges, and is awaiting sentencing.
Another defendant, Andrew Badolato, also pleaded guilty over the scheme, while a judge in June declared a mistrial in the case of the final defendant, Timothy Shea.
Bannon championed “America First” right-wing populism, including fierce opposition to existing immigration practices, that became hallmarks of Trump’s presidency.
He now runs the popular podcast “War Room,” and often hosts guests who deny that Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Mark Porter)
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