Conservative strategist Steve Bannon has pleaded guilty to a fraud charge related to duping donors who gave money to a private effort to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, reached a plea agreement that spares him from jail time in the “We Build the Wall” scheme as long as he stays out of trouble. Bannon had decried the case as a “political persecution.” The deal on Tuesday comes just days after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the Justice Department to investigate what the president called the “weaponization of prosecutorial power.” Two other men involved in the project pleaded guilty to federal charges and were sentenced to prison.
