The luxury lifestyle of Iraq vet who 'stole' from We Build The Wall
In 2018, Kolfage set up the GoFundMe account in support of President Trump and to prove the nation's appetite for a border wall between the US and Mexico.
It was inundated with donations from Republicans and had collected more than $20million by December that year. GoFundMe became suspicious of where the money was going and warned Kolfage to donate it to a legitimate charity or refund everyone who'd given to it.
That is when, prosecutors say, Bannon, Timothy Shea and Andrew Badolato got involved. They used shell companies and We Build The Wall Inc, a not-for-profit formed by Bannon to launder the money back to Kolfage and keep some for themselves, it's claimed.
The fund would pay the shell companies, then they would deposit the money back into accounts held by Kolfage or his wife, marking the transactions down as for 'media', 'consulting' or 'social media', it is alleged.
Despite claiming on the GoFundMe that he'd 'never take a penny' from the donations, the indictment alleges that Kolfage took a $20,000-a-month salary from it in addition to a one-off, $100,000 payment. In total, he took $350,000, it's claimed.
Bannon allegedly took $1million from it - some of which he used to pay Kolfage, but some he allegedly kept and spent on hotels, travel and credit card debt.