‘They Will Have to Kill Me First’: Bannon Drops Wild, Defiant Statement In Response to Potential Criminal Indictment

Steve Bannon released a wild statement on Tuesday night after news broke from the Washington Post that New York is set to indict the former Trump White House adviser over his role in allegedly defrauding donors to the We Build the Wall charity.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is reportedly prepared to indict Bannon on Thursday on charges that will “mirror a federal fraud case that ended when then-President Donald Trump on his last day in office pardoned longtime ally Bannon,” reported the Daily News.

Bannon is expected to turn himself in on Thursday reported the Daily News, citing a source close to the MAGA pundit.

Two men charged alongside Bannon by the federal government for defrauding donors pleaded guilty in April to the charges as they did not receive presidential pardons. Both men are facing up to 20 years in prison after having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

“The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” said Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan who announced the charges in August 2020.

Bannon was arrested and charged at the time with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. “The organizers of the scheme allegedly defrauded their donors—who raised more than $25 million for the cause—by siphoning money for their own personal use, with Bannon reportedly receiving more than $1 million of the funds,” Forbes reported at the time.

Bannon slammed the new charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as “partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”

“Just days after being swatted three different times by deranged thugs from New York City inspired by the Biden Administration to assassinate me by police, the Soros-backed DA has now decided to pursue phony charges against me 60 days before the midterm election because WarRoom is the major source of the MAGA grassroots movement,” Bannon raged in a statement.

Bannon’s WarRoom podcast has been a key platform for GOP activists and 2022 candidates to reach out to the MAGA base. Bannon has been explicit about his strategy to put as many pro-Trump MAGA official in local and state office as possible in 2022 and has emphasized former President Donald Trump’s debunked allegations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen while hyping the candidates he supports this cycle.

“The SDNY did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election. It didn’t work then, it certainly won’t work now. This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system,” Bannon continued.

“I am proud to be a leading voice on protecting our borders and building a wall to keep our country safe from drugs and violent criminals. The WarRoom show will be more vital, more intense, more urgent, and bigger this time,” Bannon added, again name-checking his podcast.

“They are coming after all of us, not only President Trump and myself. I am never going to stop fighting. In fact, I have not yet begun to fight. They will have to kill me first,” Bannon, never one for subtly, continued while echoing rhetoric from Trump world following the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago.

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