Inside Steve Bannon’s Alleged Scheme To Fleece Trump Voters Who Wanted A Border Wall

LOADING ERROR LOADING Brian Kolfage had a problem. As part of a fundraising promotion, We Build the Wall offered free, autographed copies of Trump Jr.’s book, “Triggered,” to people donating at least $75. The next day, Kolfage posted a photo of himself with a small group of people including Trump Jr. and “Foreman Mike.” Kolfage shared the same image to his website, captioning it, “Brian Kolfage and Donald Trump Jr. During a Recent Visit to the Border Wall.” Trump ally Kris Kobach, an immigration hard-liner and former Kansas secretary of state who led Trump’s failed investigation of alleged voter fraud, also served on We Build the Wall’s advisory board. Madison Cawthorn, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District who recently got into hot water for an Instagrammed trip to Hitler’s vacation house in Germany, appeared in a late July Instagram post from Kolfage that said: “Pumped to see @madisoncawthorn make it out to the ‘people’s wall’ he’s one of my favorite patriots, he bleeds red, white and blue.” And the nonprofit Bannon used to funnel We Build the Wall Funds also has deep ties to the larger Republican infrastructure. Cernovich used his time to smear the mainstream media as “fake news.” When asked for his thoughts on the QAnon disinformation campaign, which the FBI considers a potential national security threat, said, “I’m happy that people believe in something.” Other speakers at the event included Michelle Malkin, who now collaborates openly with white nationalists, who ranted about communists and anarchists and warned that the resettlement of Muslim refugees could destroy America; Candace Owens, whom Republicans in Congress frequently use to whitewash the threat of far-right extremism, downplayed police brutality; and Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter who lost his job after being linked to prominent white nationalists, raised the “deep state” specter as he attacked the Mueller report and branded Russian interference in the 2016 election a “hoax.” “I could go on and on but I conclude this portion by simply saying an obvious and lamentable fact that every single institution in the United States is either actively malicious against the American people or a scam,” Beattie said.