Two men who led We Build the Wall, a private group that said it was helping construct President Trump’s border wall, pleaded guilty Thursday to defrauding hundreds of thousands of people who gave money for the effort.
Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato admitted to siphoning away some of the $25 million raised through crowdsourcing, with Kolfage using the money to fund his lifestyle.
The organization had promised donors all the money given would go toward wall construction.
Kolfage also pleaded guilty to a tax-fraud charge. Authorities say he lied on his taxes to conceal the money he was taking from the wall.
We Build the Wall burst onto the political scene in 2018, hoping to harness the energy of Trump supporters who backed his iconic border-wall plans but were frustrated at resistance in Congress to funding the project.
Kolfage and his associates said they would raise money and construct wall themselves at a tiny fraction of the cost Homeland Security was incurring.
The group built a half-mile section of wall in New Mexico, and claims credit for a 3.5-mile stretch in Texas, too.
They said their plan was to donate the wall to the federal government to be incorporated into the mileage Homeland Security was building, but the feds didn’t want anything to do with the construction, which followed a different model than their construction, and faced questions of durability.
Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former strategist, was also part of the We Build the Wall effort and was charged in the case. The former president issued a pardon to Mr. Bannon just before leaving office last year.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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