New York — Steve Bannon, in an apparent coercive plea deal, pleaded guilty Tuesday to felony fraud in a New York court and was sentenced to no jail time.
Moments later, an unrepentant Bannon called for the prosecution of his prosecutor Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and the Trump-pursuing NY AG Letitia James.
In a “show” confession, Bannon “admitted” he helped defraud donors in a crowd fundraising scheme to build a southern U.S. border wall to try to slow the threat of millions of illegal aliens entering the country.
In exchange for his guilty plea, Bannon, 71, accepted a three-year conditional discharge, avoiding prison. If he complies with the court-imposed conditions for three years, the case will be closed without a felony on his record.
Under the terms of the sentence, Bannon is prohibited from leading or handling funds for any charity or nonprofit organization in New York, something he is sure not to want to ever do again. He still has 49 other states to choose from.
Coercion in Action
If he had gone to trial and was convicted, Bannon could have been sentenced to more than a decade in prison.
His lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said Bannon opted to plead guilty after he recognized the realities of a trial in Manhattan for a politically active and outspoken Republican as a defendant.
In Manhattan, a Democratic biased judge (actually a prosecutor in spirit) would lead a jury by the nose to convict him – then sentence him to more than a decade in a filth hole of a prison.
Through exclusion of evidence, by stacking a jury (by failing to exclude biased jurors) by gestures, tone of voice, by outright blatantly wrong rulings on objections, by slanted and legally false jury instructions, judges can tip the scales of justice by placing their generally capacious bottoms on the prosecutor’s side of the scale.
It would be a show trial much like the one Roger Stone experienced in equally corrupt Washington DC under the ridiculous and capricious federal judge/prosecutor Amy Berman Jackson.
Bannon’s prosecutor/judge was acting State Supreme Court Judge April Newbauer.
Trade Off
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
Under the deal, DA Bragg agreed to trade the chance of putting Bannon in prison for years through specious money laundering and conspiracy charges for a hollow “guilty” plea that means next to nothing.
Bragg seemed to have caved in his political bloodlust when he imagined a possible similar fate for himself down the road. Bragg, as well as any American living, knows that prosecutors can target a person first, then find the crime or the shadow of a crime.
Bannon’s plea deal came just days after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the Justice Department to investigate what Trump called the “weaponization of prosecutorial power.”
Defiance
Outside court, Bannon urged Bondi to open criminal investigations into Bragg, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump over his business practices and is leading legal challenges to his administration’s policies.
Letitia James is fighting Trump on everything he does.
Among James’ leading pushbacks against Trump is the right for children to sterilize themselves before they can legally consent to sex, and, before they can vote or legally smoke or drink, amputate their genitals, in the name of gender affirming care, something Trump has called “Chemical And Surgical Mutilation.”
Queen James
Bannon called Attorney General James the “queen of lawfare” and warned that Trump and his allies “ought to be worried about this out-of-control city” where prosecutors choose targets – and get the useful idiots of the grand jury to indict and destroy lives – acting exactly the same as the Department of Justice has acted for decades.
It is exceedingly clear that the state had a very weak case against Bannon, but that would not matter in the current legal system.
An unbowed, convicted (by bogus prosecution) Bannon called Bragg and James an “existential threat” to the Trump administration over their legal actions against the former president.
“I’m calling on right now the Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin an immediate criminal investigation into Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, all of it for what they did to President Trump,” Bannon said.
Background on the Case
Bannon was first indicted on similarly politically- motivated federal charges in 2020 but was pardoned by Trump before facing trial. The New York prosecutors revived the case in August 2022, charging Bannon with money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud. Prosecutors alleged he misled donors who contributed over $15 million to the “We Build the Wall” campaign.
After all their self righteous bluster of Bannon’s grave criminality, now it is put laughably to bed with almost zero penalty.
It remains to be seen if the old karma comes to visit either Bragg or James, who have for so long lived by the sword.
