TUCSON — Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against four men in connection with their fundraising efforts for a private border wall.
Perhaps the biggest name among the four arrests is Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump who left his post at the White House nearly three years ago.
The man who led that fundraising is Brian Kolfage, a longtime Arizonan and Purple Heart recipient who led the "We Build The Wall" crowdfunding campaign on the website GoFundMe. After leaving the White House, Bannon became active with the group, which advocated private funding for physical barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The group eventually raised $25 million from donors all over the United States for border wall construction, according to the unsealed indictment from prosecutors in New York.
Kolfage became a prominent figure in conservative circles, drawing the support of other hard-line immigration advocates including Bannon, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, former Arizona Diamondbacks Pitcher Curt Schilling, and Mesa, Arizona, "Angel Mom" Mary Ann Mendoza.
Bannon, Kolfage and two other men now face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the two charges, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Who is Brian Kolfage?
Brian Kolfage, 37, has strong Arizona ties stretching over 15 years. He lived in Tucson for nearly a decade and attended school there prior to founding We Build The Wall, Inc. in December 2018.
Kolfage was born in Michigan, but lived in Hawaii before enrolling in the U.S. Air Force in 2001. As part of his military service, he was deployed to Kuwait in 2003 and then to Iraq the following year. While on duty in Iraq, he lost both his legs and his right hand in a mortar attack. He received the Purple Heart for his service.
Following his year-long recovery at Walter Reed Medical Center, Kolfage moved to Tucson in 2005 to work at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to work as base security manager, according to a profile of him published by the University of Arizona's College of Architecture.
He began taking classes at Pima Community College in 2007, and two years later, he enrolled at the university as a Pat Tillman scholar, a scholarship program from the foundation that honors the slain soldier and former Arizona State and Arizona Cardinals football player.
Kolfage graduated with a degree in architecture in 2014.
During the time he was a student at the University of Arizona, Kolfage served on the Veteran's Advisory Council for then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He was her guest at the 2012 State of the Union address, a year after the mass shooting that severely injured Giffords.
He moved to Florida with his wife, whom he married in Arizona. But has continued to travel to Arizona, including to several events tied to the group he founded.
In December 2018, Kolfage set up a GoFundMe account to raise funds from private donors all around the U.S. to build physical barriers along the Southwest U.S. border, in support of one of Trump's signature campaign promises.
After learning that the money they raised for the federal government would go into a general fund rather than directly toward a wall, and under threat of having his crowdfunding page shut down by GoFundMe, he founded We Build the Wall Inc, a 501(c)4 organization registered in Florida to funnel the money.
The organization's website said they raised $25 million from 500,000 donors, enough to privately build 100 miles of border fencing. The group facilitated the construction of border fencing in two locations: a half-mile project west of El Paso in Sunland Park, New Mexico, and a three-mile segment on the banks of the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas.
What does the indictment say?
According to the unsealed indictment from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Kolfage, along with Bannon and two other men, "orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors."
The court document alleges that Kolfage assured donors publicly, including through his social media accounts, that he would not take or use any of the money they raised for border wall construction for his personal use. But prosecutors accused Kolfage of lying about that.
"Kolfage covertly took more than $350,000 in funds that had been donated to We Build the Wall for his personal use," while Bannon pocketed more than $1 million from the donated money, the indictment said.
As evidence, prosecutors presented text messages between Kolfage, Bannon and the other two accused co-conspirators discussing payments the four men had arranged in a "secret agreement" to avoid public scrutiny. Kolfage, in particular, would receive $100,000 upfront and $20,000 each month thereafter.
To do so, the four men routed monthly payments through the non-profit and another shell company, falsifying invoices and vender agreements to cover their tracks, according to the indictment.
The four men used the money on a range of personal expenses, "including among other things, travel, hotels, consumer goods, and personal credit card debts," the document said.
The indictment said that in October 2019, Kolfage and the three other men learned they could be under investigation and stopped some of the payments or took steps to further conceal their actions, including the use of encrypted messaging apps.
Following the grand jury's indictment, law enforcement arrested Kolfage on Thursday at his Florida home.
What was Steve Bannon's role?
Steve Bannon became involved in We Build the Wall shortly after Kolfage formed the organization, according to court records and media interviews Kolfage gave in early 2019.
The indictment said Bannon, along with Kolfage, was very involved and exerted a high level of control over the scheme to defraud donors, directing who would received the diverted funds and how.
"Bannon made clear in a text message," to one of the other co-conspirators, "that there would be 'no deal I don't approve,'" the court records said.
At the time of his initial involvement with We Build the Wall, Bannon was, by far, the most recognized figure within the organization. He had just finished his tenure as adviser to Trump, and frequently traveled around the country in support of the president's agenda, even though he no longer worked for him.
Several of those visits took place in Arizona.
What did the men do in Arizona?
One of his first visits, in November 2017— a year before Kolfage began his crowdfunding campaign — Bannon delivered the keynote address at the Brian Terry Foundation dinner in Tucson. The event honors the Arizona Border Patrol agent killed in December 2010 by a crew of criminals intending to rob cartel smugglers north of Nogales.
The foundation gave Bannon, who also served as the editor of Breitbart News, with the Courage in Journalism award for the news site's coverage of the botched gun-trafficking operation known as "Fast and Furious." Guns traced to the program ended up in the hands of some of the cartel rip crew members that killed Terry.
In February 2019, Bannon headlined a townhall organized by We Build the Wall, along with Bannon and Kobach, in the retirement community of Green Valley, halfway between Tucson and the Arizona-Mexico border.
The event, geared toward a local Republican group, focused on border security issues and features other speakers like Mendoza, whose son — a Mesa police officer — was killed in a crash involving an undocumented immigrant who police said was driving while drunk.
Kolfage and Bannon also talked about their work with We Build the Wall. Just three days after the townhall in Green Valley, Bannon directed the transfer of $100,000 from the crowd-sourced funds to Kolfage, the first of several secret payments, according to the indictment.
Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza.
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