Ultimately, most donors allowed their contributions to funnel to We Build the Wall rather than accept a refund, under repeated assurances that all of their money would go directly to construction. Several hundred thousands of those dollars, prosecutors say, did not.
We Build the Wall did put money toward its stated purpose, although the indictment does not specify how much. But prosecutors allege that Kolfage, Bannon, and Badolato also agreed to pay Kolfage $100,000 upfront and $20,000 per month afterward under the table. To obscure those payments, the indictment says, they routed them through a separate nonprofit that Bannon and Badolato already controlled. The first payout went through on February 11, one month after GoFundMe had first pulled the plug. Every month, like clockwork, another $20,000 was wired from We Build the Wall to Bannon’s nonprofit, and then from the nonprofit’s bank account to Kolfage.
The scheme got slightly more sophisticated from there, according to court documents. The nonprofit sent payments to Kolfage’s spouse, claiming on a tax form that it was for “media.” Starting in April 2019, Kolfage’s alleged monthly salary was passed through purported We Build the Wall vendors, including a shell company incorporated by Shea. As before, We Build the Wall paid the shell company, and the shell company turned much of that money around to pay Kolfage, claiming it was for “social media” accounts and pages. Over the course of 10 months, prosecutors say, Kolfage took in over $350,000 that had been passed through friendly third-party entities.
He wasn’t alone. Bannon, Badolato, and Shea each “received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds to build the wall,” the indictment says, which they allegedly spent on everything from personal travel to paying off credit card debt. Court documents say that Bannon specifically took in o ..
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