President Trump distanced himself from his former chief strategist hours after his arrest on fraud charges, saying he thought Steve Bannon was “showboating” with a border wall fundraising project.
He spoke hours after Bannon and three others were charged with defrauding donors as part of an online fundraising appeal, “We Build The Wall.”
“I don’t like that project,” said Trump. “I thought it was being done for showboating reasons.”
Bannon was one of the key figures in Trump’s rise to the White House, but the two have not spoken in months.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the president said Bannon’s arrest was “sad” but that he should not have been involved in the scheme.
“It was something I very much thought was inappropriate to be doing,” he added.
The project was designed to raise more than $25 million for the president’s border wall and headed by figures who touted their close ties to Trump in their pitch to donors.
Criminal charges unsealed on Thursday alleged that little of the wall was built and that Bannon, along with the project’s co-founder Brian Kolfage and two others, kept hundreds of thousands of dollars for their personal use.
He is the latest in a list of campaign figures and associates who have been charged or convicted since Trump took power. They include his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who is serving more than seven years for conspiracy and fraud convictions.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany also said Trump knew nothing about the project. “As everyone knows, President Trump has no involvement in this project and felt it was only being done in order to showboat, and perhaps raise funds,” she said.
