A New York judge has set a December trial date for Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist who is facing charges of scheming to con donors who gave money to build a border wall.
Judge April Newbauer issued a trial date of Dec. 9 in the “We Build the Wall” case. Mr. Bannon was excused from attending Tuesday’s hearing because of his incarceration.
The trial was expected to start as soon as September. But it was postponed after he was convicted of defying a congressional subpoena related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Bannon is expected to be released in late October. Judge Newbauer said she wanted to allow enough time for Mr. Bannon to meet with his lawyers to review the case, trial exhibits, and other items that she said would be “difficult to go over during counsel visits in prison.”
Once the jury is seated and the opening statements are delivered, the testimony phase should last about a week.
Lawyers John Carman and Joshua Kirshner, representing Mr. Bannon, declined to comment after Tuesday’s hearing.
Prosecutors have accused Mr. Bannon of helping funnel over $100,000 to a co-founder of the nonprofit WeBuildTheWall Inc., who was getting a secret salary despite promises to donors that every dollar would be used to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“All the money you give goes to building the wall,” Mr. Bannon said at a June 2019 fundraiser, according to the indictment. He is not accused of pocketing any of the money for himself but rather of facilitating the secret payouts.
Mr. Bannon, 70, has pleaded not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges. He has called them “nonsense.”
Yet the accusations have followed him from one court to another. Mr. Bannon initially faced federal charges, until that prosecution was cut short when then-President Donald Trump pardoned him in the final hours of his presidential term.
But presidential pardons apply only to federal charges, not state ones. And Mr. Bannon found himself facing state charges when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took up the “We Build the Wall” matter.
Three other men who did not receive pardons are serving federal prison time in the case. Two pleaded guilty, and the third was convicted at trial.
Meanwhile, a federal jury in Washington convicted Mr. Bannon in 2022 of contempt of Congress, finding that he refused to answer questions under oath or provide documents to the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack.
Mr. Bannon’s attorneys argued that he did not refuse to cooperate but that there had been uncertainty about the dates for him to do so.
An appeals court panel upheld his conviction, and the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute bid to delay his prison term while his appeal plays out further.
He turned himself in on July 1 to start serving his time, calling himself a “political prisoner.”
