Convictions: The Many Crimes of Donald Trump: Bannon Banished
A special PREVAIL podcast episode, plus a review of some accomplices.
On July 1, three days before Independence Day, Stephen Kevin Bannon, the leprous-faced, multi-shirt-wearing, nihilistic windbag, must report to prison, to serve his four-month sentence for Contempt of Congress.
Bannon is a close associate of Miles Guo, the audacious Chinese fraudster under federal indictment for “various wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering charges” accomplished through an “alleged sprawling and complex scheme by the defendants, and others, to solicit investments in various entities and programs through false statements and representations to hundreds of thousands of [Guo’s] online followers.” Basically, per the indictment, Guo used his enormous platforms to tell lies to get his followers to send him money, which he stole. You’re not gonna believe this, but Bannon is also under indictment, in New York State, for a similar crime involving the “We Build the Wall” fundraising fraud. Birds of a feather and all that.
Bannon did not wake up one morning in January of 2019 and decide to leave the priesthood to become a supervillain. He’s always been this brand of shit. And he was the chief executive of the Trump campaign in 2016—taking the head role after another convicted felon campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had to bow out when reports emerged about his ties to shady Russian oligarchs. Manafort, of course, ran a political consulting firm for dictators and crooks with longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone, another convicted felon.
Trump picked Bannon because he had a criminal mind. And Bannon used his influence on the new president to install himself on the national security team—you know, where he was privy to God knows what level of national secrets—along with another convicted felon, Mike Flynn, whom Trump was explicitly warned about by President Obama.
In this short excerpt from my new book, Rough Beast, I lay out Trump’s 2016 circle of crooks:
Mike Flynn, his disgraced former national security adviser, is a felon. He was convicted of lying to the FBI. And he was a key figure in the lead-in to January 6.
Michael Cohen, his personal attorney, was convicted of tax evasion and campaign finance violations relating to the Stormy Daniels brouhaha.
Paul Manafort, chair of the Trump campaign from June through August 2016—prime treason season—was indicted for conspiracy against the United States, money laundering, FARA violations, and a host of other charges. He was convicted and spent 23 months in prison.
Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime chum and political adviser, was indicted on five counts of false statements, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstructing an official proceeding. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 months in federal prison.
Stephen K. Bannon, who ran the Trump campaign after Manafort’s departure and was even on the national security team for a minute, was indicted for wire fraud and money laundering. He was indicted again this past year for obstruction of Congress, and was convicted. He was sentenced to jail time but as of this writing, has yet to be ordered to the hoosegow. The wire fraud trial is ongoing.
George Papadopoulos, one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers, was convicted of making false statements to the FBI. His drunken gossip is what led the FBI to open its investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. He served 12 days in federal prison.
Tom Barrack, a longtime Trump crony and one of his money men, was indicted for acting as an unregistered agent for the UAE. He was acquitted.
Rudy Giuliani—whose father did time in Sing-Sing for sticking up a milkman, and later worked as a mob enforcer—was allegedly involved in the extortion of Ukraine president Zelenskyy, was a leader of the movement to illegally overturn the 2020 election, and on January 6, 2021, demanded “trial by combat.” He was indicted in the Georgia and Arizona elections cases. According to a lawsuit filed against him by a former employee, he is a serial sexual assailant—an allegation that rings true to anyone who saw the second Borat movie.
This is why the Republicans are so desperate to convict Hunter Biden of anything that will stick—to create a false equivalence between the House of Biden and what can legitimately be called the Trump crime family. (Weird how the NRA is silent while the son of a sitting president is on trial for a bullshit gun charge. But then, the NRA is no stranger to criminality.)
Trump is a convicted felon who surrounded himself with convicted felons, most of whom he later pardoned. That’s the objective truth.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
S7 E16: Convictions: The Many Crimes of Donald Trump
This week, Greg Olear shares 34 thoughts on 34 felony counts. Then, there is a reprise of the May 31 episode of “The Five 8,” in which Greg and LB try, and fail, to remember all of Donald’s crimes. Plus: blowing!
Subscribe to The Five 8:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0BRnRwe7yDZXIaF-QZfvhA
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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore. Steve Bannon speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, December 20, 2022.
A condemning and succinct read. My neighborhood here, in Brooklyn, which was once teeming with, how to put this delicately, “fellas” not unlike these guys, yet were actual “tough guys.” Say, “Murder Inc.” guys. Trump’s chumps are none THOSE sort of people. These were fearsome, dapper and oh-so-felonious creatures’; actual killers. Trumpie’s uh, ‘people’ were gutless craven cowards, whom let others do their dirty works. Trump had said he “could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not loose any votes..” that is a lie. donald trump was mocked. Scorned. Belittled in my neighborhood fellow’s milieu. How he didn’t get “WACKED” yet, for stiffing his plumbers, sheet rock installers—even his piano players, architects et al, to me is very mysterious. I am not regaling these folks, I just know what I had heard on street corners, in bars, in the pork stores etc. during the 1970’s in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Of course, now, you have a different sort of criminal. An influential and educated one. A baby stroller Mom at home while Father is making HIS millions in board rooms, investment banking, financial ‘services’, over developers, and of course lawyers. These sort of people disgust me, much as trump disgusts me. They’re rude. They’re entitled and privileged. Went to the ‘finest’ Educational Institutions—“look down their noses at the serfs” they deem we old timers are to be. There is a difference. Just as grotesque, unlikable, snobby “push you off the slim , grey slated streets so they can jog their way up to Prospect Park during the DAY—condescending as Trump’s people are. In essence—no heart. And definitely no soul. The characters from my day were colorful, tolerant and didn’t have Black nannies pushing their young. They were natives (sans the Indigenous, of course) whom moved aside on the street for their elders, wouldn’t like their wives or girlfriends dress in those revealing and tight costumes so much ‘in vogue’ now. It’s a very different, kind of vibe. They call the cops if you sit on THEIR stoops or look at THEM in a disapproving manner. Or ask them not to have their multitudinous fancy dogs piss on your own yard gate or front tree. A conundrum, indeed..
Imagine that you are a corrections officer, and you have to do the body search for Bannon on intake.
I shudder just thinking about it.
Great as always Greg!