Stephen K. Bannon, who was a top adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Thursday and is expected to face charges later in the day. .
The exact charges against Mr. Bannon are not known, and the indictment against him has been sealed. But they is expected to be related to his work with We Build the Wall Inc., a fundraiser set up to help fulfill Mr. Trump’s promise to build a fence along the US-Mexico border.
Mr. Bannon entered the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Hogan Street around 9:10 a.m. while being whistled by two protesters.
“This is an irony,” he told reporters. “On the very day the mayor of this city has a delegation down to the border, they are persecuting people here for trying to stop them at the border.”
Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, on Wednesday declined to comment on the indictment. Attorneys from the New York attorney general’s office are also involved in the investigation. A spokeswoman for that office, Delaney Kempner, also declined to comment. A press conference was scheduled for late Thursday.
Mr. Bannon, 68, has been previously indicted. Federal prosecutors in 2020 accused he and three other men receive donations from the crowd-funded border wall project to pay for personal expenses.
The group said it plans to use the funds to build sections of the fence separating the United States and Mexico. Conservative activists, including Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., appeared at an event for the group, which ultimately brought in $25 million in donations.
Mr. Bannon used $1 million of it for personal spending, according to prosecutors. But Trump pardons Bannon in January 2021, preventing federal authorities from bringing him to trial.
In a statement this week, Mr Bannon called the state’s allegations “fake”, adding: “This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system .”
The new state indictment against Mr. Bannon highlights an attempt by Manhattan prosecutors to charge federal pardon recipients who they believe have also violated state law.
Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul J. Manafort, used to sentenced federal criminal in a 2018 financial fraud trial. Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a former Manhattan district attorney, in March 2019 charged him with mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies. A judge rule in December 2019 that those charges violated the state’s double jeopardy law, which says defendants cannot be tried twice for the same crime.
Mr. Trump pardoned Manafort a year later.
Recognizing the challenge to the charges against Manafort, the New York legislature allowed state prosecutors to pursue charges against individuals who received a presidential pardon for similar crimes.
In one interview Speaking to The New York Times before leaving office, Vance said he thought the federal charges against Manafort and Bannon were “a Manhattan crime.”
“These people have been indicted by federal prosecutors. In my view, they have been legally and unjustly pardoned by the president. And that shouldn’t end the story there.”
Jonah E. Bromwich contribution report.
