brian kolfage took all that moneney from build the wall.o, we're actually in a park, new mexicoco. amy: so there e you have brian kolfage and steve bannon both indicted. lives in with lexixi churchill, the significance of f what the'e saying a and before that, erik prince, foundeder of blackwater? it is startling to joke about something like that that ththey are now facing charges f. what i would like to end on is this has been an outstanding itstion and because of how was structured as a nonprofitit organization, , we have not hada lolot of thehese answewers aboue the money is going and what it has bebeen usesed for so far. willie reached out to brian kolfage about this, he said we would need to wait for those answers to comome in oncece the ,rgroup files ththeir annual ret 990 or a version of it. we are eagerly awaiting that to see what further information we will be able to learn. amy: finally, what happens to this wall ththat was already but now that these men have been indicted eddie fisher industries, tommy fisher getting something li

. >> we're on the million dollar yacht of brian kolfage. brian kolfage took all that money from "build the wall." no, we're actually in sunlen park, new mexico. >> reporter: the former trump campaign ceo joking about misusing donor contributions to fund the president's signature issue. >> build that wall! build that wall! >> reporter: but prosecutors are not laughing and have accused bannon and organization founder brian kolfage of fraud. they promised they wouldn't take a penny of the $25 million they raised from 500,000 donors, many of them making small contributions of their hard-earned money. but authorities say that kolfage and bannon siphoned off more than $1 million to line their own pockets. bannon, who pleaded not guilty and posted a $5 million bail after being indicted, vowing to fight the charges. >> i'm not going to back down. this is a political hit job. everybody knows i love a fight. >> reporter: prosecutors have opened a hotline for defrauded donors so they can potentially get some of their money back. david? >> pierre thoma

tropez in southern france on the million-dollar yacht of brian kolfage. that money from build the wall. >> the joke not so funny anymore. kolfage repeatedly claimed he wouldn't take a single penny. >> 100% of the money goes toward your wall. it's not going to line someone's pocket. i'm taking zero dollars as salary. >> reporter: kolfage told reporters they've lumped every sum i've made into the indictment, even before we build the wall. i had other sources of income to pay for things. like bannon said, kolfage wrote, it's a fiasco. according to the indictment, the co-defendants conspired to pay kolfage's salary with donor's money by using a second nonprofit and hidden payments. doug wire says it's the type of alleged fraud that hurts all charities. >> and that's what really breaks my heart. here's an example. if the allegations are true, of fraud at its worst, and they were defrauded out of maybe checks of $10 or $50, some many more dollars, but none of that should take place under the guise of having someone then take that money, or part of it, to go live

. >> ben, date back to 2018, you were digging into the background of brian kolfage, the founder of that fund-raiser who has also now been indicted. walk us through what you learned in your reporting about him, this fund-raiser and some of the other folks behind it, if you can. >> brian kolfage is not new to this idea of scheming to get a bunch of email addresses. once they get those email addresses, they use it to get more email addresses. initially he ran a bunch of fake websites. after that, those websites were taken down. he started fund-raising on the idea that free speech, he was silenced, because his websites were taken down. after that, he started this we build the wall campaign. that took off like crazy, $20 million in donations. some through gofundme which they took down and refunded all those people. some people gave them money, straight up, through the website. now we know a lot of that money through shell corporations were spent to give kolfage plastic surgery. they said to fund a lavish lifestyle which is what was happening there. but by the time -- a lot of people in the t

though the group's founder 38-year-old air force veteran brian kolfage once vowed to never take a cent in compensation. >> good stewards to the money. follow tlud on every promise. >> reporter: federal prosecutors defrauded thousands of donors vowing all the money would be spent on construction. president trump raised doubts about the group back in july. >> read about it. didn't like it. this is for government not private people. >> reporter: but falsely claimed he was unfamiliar with the group. several trump associates like ericprin a prinzebac were backe. and joining a long list of trump associated indicted or found guilty including former attorney longtime political adviser deputy campaign chair and form 0er national security adviser. asked about that today, trump deflected to president barack obama. >> great lawlessness in the obama administration. >> reporter: news of bannon the indictment came as trump prepares to kick off the republican national convention. sources told cnn trump has been in overdrive demanding live programming not taped speeching like the democratic convention

prosecutors say the group's founder, brian kolfage, a triple amputee veteran, took more than $350,000 innns afterrsould not take a penny of compensatin. kolfage told cbs' david begnaud last year that his operation was clean. >> if we were doing anything wrong, gofundme would shut this down in a heartbeat. >> reporter: prosecutors say tens of thousands of dollars were paid to kolfage through his wife who flaunted their extravagant lifestyle on social media, cosmetic surgery, a luxury s.u.v. and a brand new boat. he once railed against the washington swamp on "60 minutes." >> the swamp is a business model. >> reporter: but he's now the sixth close associate of ost of the people in this room know. >> reporter: today, president trump distanced himself from bannon and the border project. >> i was not involved in the project. i have no idea who was. >> reporter: but several of the president's key supporters were on the group's aboard. eric prince, the brother oftrum, betsy devoss. former milwaukee sheriff david clarke, and kris kobach. and his own son, donald trump jr., helped raise funds f

. >> reporter: the project was started by brian kolfage, an air force vet who lost three limbs in iraq. in fundraising pitches, he insisted every penny raised would go to the wall. >> 100% of your money goes towards the wall. it's not going to line someone's pockets. i'm taking zero dollars as a salary. no compensation. >> reporter: but the indictment alleges kolfage spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on home renovations, payments toward a boat, a luxury suv, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments, and credit card debt. and that bannon himself used hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations for his own personal expenses. president trump today downplayed his connections to bannon, who he fired three years ago. >> i feel very badly. i haven't been dealing with him wall campaign. >> i didn't like when i read about it, i didn't like it. i said, this is for government. this isn't for private people. it sounded to me like showboating. >> reporter: but the president's son, donald trump jr. promoted the project at an event last year, saying it's exactly the kind o

. >> reporter: the project was started by brian kolfage, an air force vet who lost three limbs in iraq. he insisted every penny raised would go to the wall. >> i'm taking zero dollars, no compensation. >> reporter: but it shows he received personal items including home renovations, jewelry and even cosmetic surgery and bannon allegedly received more than a million dollars to cover personal expenses. >> the indictment looks really strong. perhaps what's most damning even after they found out about the existence of the investigation, they took extra efforts to cover it up. >> reporter: bannon who served as president trump's chief strategist until 2017 was arrested on the coast of connecticut on this $28 million yacht owned by an exiled chinese billionaire where he has reportedly been living for several months, but as abc's jon karl tells us, his bail agreement means he may have to find new living arrangements. >> he is out on $5 million bail. his travel restricted to the new york and washington areas. he is also not allowed to travel on private jets or yachts. >> reporter: meanwhile, tru

they did so by using fake invoices and a sham vendor arrangements among other ways to insure that brian kolfageneed to know basis. they had other text messages that apparently said that kolfage went on to say salaries will never be disclosed. i'm not a lawyer. i know enough to know when the feds have your text messages it's a bad thing. >> trace, let's make sure your viewers know who steve bannon is. the same guy who claimed credit for the president's victory. then wrote a book and said zero chance the president didn't know about the trump power meeting. he backed roy moore. that's steve bannon. having said that i'm not one who wants to burn the justice system down. we have a presumption of innocence. the indictment is a formal charge, not evidence. what you just laid out what the southern district just laid out is a classic fraud scheme. >> trace: it's interesting. i want to play this sound bite from 2019. steve bannon talking about the we build the wall program and i'll get your thoughts on the other side. >> we built the wall down in el paso sector in the most dangerous part. really going up

. >> we're on the million dollar yacht of brian kolfage, took the money from build a wall. >> jeffreygood prosecutors to use the clip. >> the admission, it's the bannon, dismiss it as a joke. what's interesting about the case, it shows how many of the people around trump seek to review trump supporters as suckers. they use the hard earned money of contributors to fund the lavish lifestyles in this case. you have to wonder at some point whether the people who are earnest to believe in the second amendment, in building the wall realize they're just being used as dukes and dopes by the people who claim to represent their interest. >> the new book is entitled misdemeanors and the investigation of donald trump. it's out right now. it's "new york times" best se seller already. thank you for joining us. >> all righty. >>> on the gulf coast, ready for not just one but two tropical storms that could hit new orleans as hurricanes within days of each other. we're going to have the latest forecast and more when we come back. ♪ (vo) elevate your senses. the audi a6. get exceptional offers at your

$25 million and this indictment says bannon took more than a million for personal expenses and brian kolfage00, not good news for the administration, coming up completing soon the miles of the wall that the administration did despite the backing by democrats. howie: let me challenge you on that. i get the symbolism of it with the planned celebration of building some of the wall but since this had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign, nothing to do with the president and happened well after bannon left the white house under pressure back in 2017, is it fair tore the media to portray this as hurting president trump? >> they're going to make the case, critics of the president and obviously i would think the biden campaign will say that the same donors for whom they perhaps elected donald trump, voted for him because of the wall issue, are you now being taken for suckers by guys like bannon, because they were told that all of their money that they would give them would go to this wall instead if it is proven true that they used it for personal expenses, it's an old tale in washington that if you

he is now accused of using donations to build a wall at the border to spend on himself and brian kolfage, a triple amputee air force veteran. bannon was arrested this morning, not by the fbi or u.s. marshals, but by inspectors of the u.s. postal service while bannon was cruising aboard a mega yacht owned by a chinese billionaire. yes, you heard that correctly. an elite police unit of the postal service, they're called the u.s. postal inspection service, had the authority to arrest bannon and they did so. now, you may find this somewhat ironic. between the postal service and the trump administration, somehow the deep state launching agents of the u.s. postal service to arrest mr. bannon. now, we checked, if you're surprised to find out the postal service has its own police force, there are 65 separate u.s. federal police departments and agencies and 27 offices of inspector general that also can make arrests and carry firearms. what in the world kind of government have we created? anyway, president trump today said he didn't like the build the wall project. he said it was showboating. he t

so that was the kind of thing that brian kolfage was known for. stuff that just sort of skirted the lines. but again, he was a decorated war veteran, and that really got him a lot of gravitas. it gave him a lot of leeway. in terms of what that means for this current indictment, i mean, i don't mind telling you i screamed because during this time a year and a half ago when we did this investigation, a lot of people were looking to him, were looking for what he was going to do with gofundme's most successful campaign ever. that's $25 million. so all eyes were on him, including it seems the feds. and if the allegations prove true it seems like what he did was start this gofundme, he sent -- got four million or something emails, which would have been lucrative anyway. then he also took apparently, allegedly, $350,000 which is just -- it's crazy to me because we had such an eye on him, the whole world did. it's just brazen if the allegations are true. >> so according to your reporting, he would put up these polls, these petitions on his websites, and w

the government says that a iraq war veteran, a triple amputee named brian kolfage decided to set up aebsite called we the people build the wall and the idea was to raise money privately to either give to the federal government or perhaps have a private entity build sections of the wall. the crowdforce funding website said you don't have a charity here. so he contacted steve bannon, according to the government, who helped kolfage set up a charity and raise money. the problem is, according to the government is that they consistently -- those two and two other men who work with him, consistently said in public appearances, on their website, that every penny raised by this website would go to fund sections of the border wall. now in fact, the government says, the four secretly agreed that kolfage would be paid a salary of $100,000 a month plus 20% of whatever it took in. the government says he eventually got $350,000 out of this. and that the other four also got money that bannon got about a million dollars that went to a charity that was apparently used in part to pay kolfage, but also t

the wall prosecutors say the group's founder brian kolfage secretly is donations on home renovations cosmetic surgery and both payments something he appeared to joke about with bannon in a resurfaced video from 2019 welcome back to stephen k van and we're off the coast to san trope a. >>and now southern france in the mediterranean are on the million-dollar yacht. brian cole branco finally took all that money from build the wall. >>well that that was kaitlan collins reporting for us tonight, democrats are gearing up for a week of counter-programming that vice candidate kamala harris and joe will not be traveling due to covid-19. >>and coming up all the final check of your forecast not only tracking warm dry weather inland. but the potential for dry lightning and >>all right we've got a final check on the 3 major complex fires that are burning in the bay area cal fire says that the l a new lightning complex fires burning in the north bay that's now 15% contained. they're making progress that has burned more than 302,000 acres so far though, and killed 5 people in the north bay, includi

brian kolfage was a lot on fox talking about the wall. i want to stay with you just a minute, kurt.we were texting with our producers about william barr, i wondered whether william barr winds up jumping into this and saving steve bannon as he saved other friends of trump. do you worry about that? >> well, yes. >> i'm sorry, to glenn, i mean to glenn. sorry. >> i was actually somewhat surprised, joy, when i saw this indictment handed down because we all know what william barr did to the roger stone case. we all know what william barr is trying to do to the mike flynn case. he's trying to tank it. so i kind of raised an eyebrow when i saw that bill barr let this one slip by. i assume he was consulted. so we'll have to see moving forward what bill barr does, because one of the big ticket questions is does steve bannon want to fight these charges and go to trial? it looks like it's a pretty strong case against him. or does he want to consider cooperating with the southern district of new york prosecutors? but that will mean he has to give up not only his three co-defendants in this case

. >> joining me now, brian kolfage. >> how are you doing on the private money raising for a wall?ibly great. and it's all american citizens who are donating to this project. if people want to donate to that wall and give their money, they can do it. what's 80 bucks from 60 million people. >> there it is, jeffrey. >> how great is that? like, the cynicism is so astonishing, top to bottom here. and by the way, they raised $25 million. you know, which is not a trivial sum of money. they didn't steal it all, but $25 million from these loyal trump supporters. >> it makes you wonder about the culture surrounding president trump, that bannon is now the tenth charged with a crime who was close to the president, including so many of the senior campaign staff and senior white house staff, too. and i want to let you know that video we just played was from media matters. they put that montage together. >> thank you very much, jeffrey. >>> a freshman quarterback for georgia state opts out of the season because of a heart condition linked to coronavirus. we have details in the bleacher report, n

build the wall which bannon used for among other things to secretly pay one of the co-defendants brian kolfage, and bannon is in custody and is expected to make his first court appearance today. because of coronavirus, a lot of these appearances are done virtually, but bannon is not expected to be detained. prosecutors are not expected to ask him to be held so we may see bannon leave the courthouse later today, but it -- it is unlikely he'll enter a plea at this moment. his lawyers did not respond to a request. he says he has no comment and the white house has declined to comment. bannon is not the first official that has ties to the trump campaign and to the president who has been arrested. we've seen michael cohen, michael flynn, roger stone and others who have been arrested so bannon is yet the latest person with close ties to the president who has been charged criminally. the now, there is no allegation that this had anything to do with the white house or the president, but prosecutors say this scheme began almost as soon as it started in december of 2018 and continued right up until relig

. >> reporter: the project started by brian kolfage, an air force vet who lost three limbs in iraq.fund-raising pitches, he insisted every penny raised would go to the wall. >> 100% of your money goes towards the wall. it's not going to line someone's pocket. i'm taking zero dollars in salary, no compensation. >> reporter: the indictment alleges kolfage spent hundreds of thousands on home renovations, payments toward a boat, a luxury suv, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, credit card debt, and bannon used hundreds of thousands in donations for his own personal expenses. president trump downplayed his connections to bannon, who he fired three years ago. >> i feel very badly. i haven't been dealing with him for a long period of time. >> reporter: the president said he never liked the build the wall campaign. >> i didn't like 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. >> reporter: the president's son, donald trump jr., promoted the project at an event last year, saying it's exactly

this private group, we build the wall, the triple amputee hero, brian kolfage, has founded.t private land owners approach us, they've seen our wall in new mexico, in sunland park, to actually help them. these are areas where the army corps of engineers -- these are niches. we're a niche player. president trump and the army corps are building long runs of wall on the southern border right now. maria: so that was august of 2019 when bannon joined me on sunday morning futures. liz peek, the charge here is that he told donors, him and his colleagues there, told donors donate money to build the wall, we're not going to get paid anything, this is just going to the wall but the southern district of new york is saying that's not true, that they actually enriched themselves by taking some of that money and paying themselves. your reaction to all of this, quite the stunner yesterday. liz: yeah, it's a horrible allegation. i hope that it's not true, of course, because a lot of vulnerable people and gullible people would have contributed probably important amounts of money to them to so

kolfage of misusing funds, they laughed about it. >> this is steve bannon off the coast of st. tro pez, on the million-dollar yacht of briange, who took all the money from build the wall. >> reporter: kolfage swore he wouldn't take a penny. >> 100% of your money is going towards the wall. i'm taking zero dollars in salary. >> reporter: reached by email, kolfage told cnn, prosecutors lumped every purchase i've made in the last two years in the indictment, even before we built the wall, not taking into account the fact that i have other sources to pay for things. like bannon says, he wrote, it's a fiasco. according to the indictment, the codefendants conspired to pay kolfage's salary with donors' money by using a second nonprofit and hidden payments. philanthropy expert doug white says it's the type of alleged fraud that hurts all charities. >> and that's what really breaks my heart. here's an example. if the allegations are true of fraud at its worst. they were defrauded out of $10, $50, maybe more dollars, but none of that should take place under the guise of having someone take that money or part of it to live a lavish li

the wall prosecutors say the group's founder brian kolfage secretly is donations on home renovationsd both payments something he appeared to joke about with bannon in a resurfaced video from 2019 welcome back to stephen k van and we're off the coast to san trope a. >>and now southern france in the mediterranean are on the million-dollar yacht, brian cole branco finally took all that money from build the wall. >>well that was kaitlan collins reporting democrats are gearing up for a week of counter-programming but biden vice presidential candidate kamala harris will you just stop caring. i wonder what age that is. simply ageless with hyaluronic complex. plumps and hydrates for your best skin at any age. from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl plumps and hydrates for your best skin at any age. oikos triple zero gives #26 saquon barkley protein to be strong. (drum roll) good job protein. ♪ ♪ i eat the protein that comes in this yogurt. ♪ ♪ >>95 just about winding up here on the kron 4 morning news on a saturday, but theresa has more on what they're working on with kron on theresa heidari

came and flamed out very quickly according to the court documents, the founder of it, this man, brian kolfageat it was entirely volunteer effort but it said he did take a lot of money, and as for steve bannon, it says he formed a non-profit organization that he controlled. it received about a million dollars from this crowdfunding effort, some of which the justice department says he used to cover -- and i'm quoting here now -- "hundreds of thousands of dollars in b the court documents basically say that this thing was pretty suspect from -- almost from the beginning. >> seth: i mean, of course it was! a crowd-sourced fundraiser to build a [ bleep ] wall in the middle of the desert the only way it could have been a more obvious scam is if they offered free boner pills with every donation the thing was one rung below those companies that claim to name a star after you. "oh, yeah, that one up there is, uh - that's, uh, dan. that will be 5,000 bucks, cash only." the details of this arrest are just absolutely incredible every little tidbit is better than the last. for example, according to cnn, ba