scorecard
  1. Home
  2. Politics
  3. world
  4. news
  5. Steven Bannon is the 7th Trump associate arrested or indicted since he became president

Steven Bannon is the 7th Trump associate arrested or indicted since he became president

Oma Seddiq,Jake Lahut   

Steven Bannon is the 7th Trump associate arrested or indicted since he became president
Steve Bannon.J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
  • Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering in connection with an online fundraising campaign on Thursday.
  • He is the seventh person close to Trump who has been arrested or indicted since Trump took office.
  • Other Trump associates charged with crimes include Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen and George Papadopoulos.
  • When asked on Thursday what the arrests and indictments say about his judgment, Trump said, "I have no idea. There was great lawlessness in the Obama administration. They spied on our campaign ... I don't think there should be a privately financed wall."

Steve Bannon, former chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and White House chief strategist, was arrested on fraud charges related to an online fundraising scheme to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Bannon, along with three others involved in the "We Build the Wall" GoFundMe campaign, were indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan who allege they defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors by using some of the more than $25 million raised for personal spending purposes.

Like many other Trump advisers, Bannon was fired by the president, just seven months after he took office in August 2017.

Bannon will be presented in court later on Thursday.

President Trump was asked what Bannon's arrest and those of other associates say about his judgment during a pool spray with the American and Iraqi press on Thursday.

"I have no idea," Trump said. "There was great lawlessness in the Obama administration. They spied on our campaign ... I don't think there should be a privately financed wall."

Here are six other Trump associates who have been charged with crimes since 2016: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen and George Papadopoulos.

Manafort, Gates, Stone, Cohen and Papadopoulos have all been found guilty; Flynn's sentencing has been delayed and the Justice Department has moved to drop all criminal charges, prompting the lead prosecutor to withdraw.

Here's more about these Trump advisors work and legal cases.

Paul Manafort

Paul Manafort

Paul Manafort, a former Trump 2016 campaign manager, was convicted in August 2018 to numerous charges, including fraud, money laundering and witness tampering, related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation on Russia interference in the 2016 election.

He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison in March 2019, which he is currently serving in home confinement due to COVID-19.

Manafort previously worked as a longtime Republican campaign consultant and lobbyist.

Roger Stone

Roger Stone
Roger Stone speaks to the media at Trump Tower on December 6, 2016 in New York City.      Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Roger Stone, a longtime ally of Trump, was indicted in January 2019, also in connection to Mueller's Russia investigation.

Stone was found guilty by a jury on seven counts of obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering in November 2019.

He was sentenced to 40 months in prison, a $20,000 fine and four years of probation by a federal judge earlier this year, but Trump commuted his sentence in July, when it was set it begin.

Stone had worked on political campaigns for Republicans for decades, including Trump's in 2015.

Rick Gates

Rick Gates
Former Deputy Trump campaign aide Rick Gates departs federal court in Washington, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017.      AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Rick Gates, another former Trump 2016 campaign aide, pleaded guilty in February 2018 to two counts of conspiracy and false statements provided in the Mueller probe.

He was sentenced to 45 days in prison, a $20,000 fine and three years probation in December 2019.

Gates, who was a longtime associate of Manafort's and worked directly with him during the Trump campaign, testified against him. Gates was given credit by a federal judge for cooperating and avoided a potential seven-year prison sentence.

Gates formerly worked as a political consultant.

Michael Flynn

Michael Flynn
Michael Flynn at Trump Tower in November.      Spencer Platt/Getty Images

In December 2017, Gen. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the US at the time, Sergey Kislyak.

Flynn got fired by Trump shortly after stepping into his role as National Security Adviser, with the official White House line being that the general was sacked for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about Kislyak.

He lasted on the job just 25 days.

Since then, Flynn's case has become messy.

Flynn got rid of his legal counsel and withdrew his plea agreement, with his guilty plea being tossed out by a three judge panel, but a recent decision overturned that one, meaning Flynn's legal saga will continue.

Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen.      Yana Paskova/Getty Images

Trump's former personal attorney and self-described "fixer" has gone through a dramatic transformation since being sentenced to three years in prison on charges of fraud and lying to Congress.

Cohen later testified against President Trump before Congress, calling him "a racist" and "a conman."

He's coming out with a tell-all book promising salacious details on Trump, including "golden showers in a sex club in Las Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump's clandestine lovers."

Cohen is currently working on the book from an upstate New York prison.

George Papadopoulos

George Papadopoulos
Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos arrives at a closed-door hearing before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committee October 25, 2018 at Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol in Washington, DC.      Alex Wong/Getty Images

One of the more perplexing and peripheral figures in the Russia scandal, George Papadopoulos was dismissed by Trumpworld as a mere "coffee boy" after it was revealed he told an Australian diplomat that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

That bit of gossip actually kicked off what would eventually become the Russia investigation, and unsealed documents later showed Papadopoulos made at least six attempts to set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agent, serving 12 days in federal prison before seeing out the rest of his sentence on a 12 month supervised release.

READ MORE ARTICLES ON

Advertisement