Steve Bannon

[fishfinger]

Cant open link. Any chance of a few quotes?

The Defense Department’s inspector general’s office will audit a $400 million border wall contract that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded to a North Dakota construction company run by a GOP donor whom President Trump repeatedly urged military officials to hire.

Glenn A. Fine, the top official at the Pentagon office, authorized a review of the contract in response to a Dec. 4 letter from Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, asking inspectors to take a closer look. Fine informed Thompson of the audit in a letter Thursday.

“You raised concerns about the possibility of inappropriate influence on USACE’s contracting decision, and questioned whether the bid submitted by Fisher Sand and Gravel Co. met solicitation standards,” Fine wrote in his letter to Thompson. “You also questioned whether USACE made the award in accordance with federal procurement law and regulations.

“In response to your request, we have decided to initiate an audit of the solicitation and award of this contract. We are assessing the methodology of that audit and will formally announce the audit soon.”

On Dec. 2, the Pentagon announced a contract worth up to $400 million to Fisher Sand and Gravel for the construction of 31 miles of new border barriers along the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona.

After its previous bids on projects for the border barrier were passed by the Army Corps, Tommy Fisher, the company’s chief executive, launched an aggressive public and private campaign to win a contract. He made several appearances on Fox News promoting the superiority of his company, while Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) personally lobbied the president to hire Fisher while accusing the Army Corps of unfairly excluding the firm. Fisher donated to Cramer’s Senate campaign, appeared with Cramer on the campaign trail and was Cramer’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year.

Fisher has paid lobbying firm Odney more than $100,000 since 2017 during its push to secure border wall contacts, disclosure records show. The company also has partnered with right-wing activist group We Build the Wall to construct fencing on private land with millions of dollars raised through online donations.

The group is led by several prominent GOP figures: ex-Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon is chairman of the group’s advisory board, and its general counsel is immigration hard-liner Kris Kobach, Kansas’s former secretary of state. Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince is also a board member, along with former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling.

We Build the Wall is attempting to install a 3.5-mile span of privately funded fencing along the banks of the Rio Grande near Mission, Tex., on land the group says Tommy Fisher purchased.

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that blocks the group from putting up the barrier because the group is planning to build along the river’s flood plain and would need a permit from the International Boundary and Water Commission to continue.

The U.S. government joined other plaintiffs in suing the group to stop Fisher’s bulldozers. During court hearings, Kobach said We Build the Wall has provided just 5 percent of the funding for the project, and the judge agreed to remove the group from the lawsuit, leaving Fisher as the defendant.

Tim Priebe, an attorney who represents Fisher, told the court that the company wants to help the government acquire private land it needs for Trump’s barrier project. Priebe told the court that Fisher is prepared to spend “a ton of private money”on the effort, according to the Progress Times in Mission.

That's all the text.

 

[two sheds]

You can buy a fuck of a lot of pleasure boats for $400 million

 

[brogdale]

Thought that the Mexicans were paying for it, anyway?
Or was that a.....

 

[DaveCinzano]

The courtroom sketches are awesome

 

[Tankus]

I wonder if hes concerned that he will get suicided in Juliet ?....

 

[Badgers]

I wonder if hes concerned that he will get suicided in Juliet ?....

Would prefer he serves a long stretch

 

[gosub]

I think its all a huge conspiracy! The US Postal Service are clearly running out of people to make them mailbags, and happened to pick on someone who has rather different ideas about how to go about wall building. The boat was clearly required for surveying some of the damper sections of Florida the Mexicans might tunnel through.

 

[maomao]

I wonder if hes concerned that he will get suicided in Juliet ?....

Joliet's in Chicago isn't it?

 

[likesfish]

Getting arrested by the postal service is funny, visions of him being taken away in handcuffs by a couple of posties in shorts and thrown into a mail sack.

I think our Royal Mail have a weird legal position where they can prosecute cases themselves (or something like that). Strange stuff.

US education department has a swat team!
They are responsible for dealing with organised student loan fraud while in the UK it's relatively easy to arrange an armed police unit to back you up or even the SAS if the spooks are upset with you.
It's nearly impossible to coordinate between different federal agencies let alone state or city. So any federal department that has any enforcement role has armed agents.

 

[MrSki]

A diagram linking Bannon to the UK.

 

[Yossarian]

I don't think Bannon's going to flip, Trump has sent the message loud and clear that anyone with incriminating information on him can expect a pardon as long as they refuse to cooperate with federal investigators. Though of course it would be totally in character for Trump to include the other three suspects in January's blizzard of federal pardons and "accidentally" leave Sloppy Steve off the list.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Joliet's in Chicago isn't it?

He's on a mission from God

 

[Orang Utan]

Can Russell Crowe please play Bannon in the inevitable forthcoming Adam McKay film of this sorry saga?

 

[Badgers]

 

[two sheds]

do it with a grapefruit I'd have thought

 

[teqniq]

Bit of selective reporting going on here, no mention of his UK connections:

Bannon Backstory Blanked

After former Breitbart News head man Steve Bannon was subjected to a high profile arrest yesterday, being lifted from a luxury yacht owned b...

zelo-street.blogspot.com

 

[tim]

Would prefer he serves a long stretch

Others might not

 

[spring-peeper]

Steve Bannon calls arrest and fraud charges a 'political hit job'

President Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon on Friday called his arrest yesterday a "political hit job" and vowed to fight the charges against him of fraud tied to a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump's border wall.

www.cnn.com

"I'm not going to back down. This is a political hit job," Bannon said Friday on his conservative podcast, "War Room." "Everybody knows I love a fight."

Bannon claimed his arrest was "to stop and intimidate people" that support Trump building the wall on the US southern border.

"I'm in this for the long-haul. I'm in this for the fight. I'm going to continue to fight," Bannon said.

 

[two sheds]

a slug perhaps

 

[stavros]

It's a good job I don't judge people by their friends.

 

[Tankus]

From june last year apparently

At the wall a thon money raiser

Just WTF
Its beyond parody
...maybe ripe for a musical

 

[pinkmonkey]

Excellent stuff as ever from Sam Kriss.



The Eclipsing of Steve Bannon | Sam Kriss

Needs a content warning incase you’re eating your dinner. Also this: I concur.

 

[Tankus]

Steven King surely

 

[teqniq]

Now with any amount of luck after his earlier remarks he'll have his bail revoked:



Oh, and this made me laugh earlier:

 

[teqniq]

Almost as if Facebook didn't give a shit or had it's own agenda.....

Steve Bannon Caught Running a Network of Misinformation Pages on Facebook

Steve Bannon has been outed for his involvement in running a network of misinformation pages on Facebook. Who could have possibly seen this coming.

gizmodo.com

 

[VfromtheG]

FFS ! Considering how much involvement he has within the current attempted ultra nationalist global revolution and that most people know this ... why the fuck is he still breathing ?

 

[marty21]

I don't understand how Trump can pardon him when he hasn't yet been convicted of anything. Presumably the courts can still go ahead with alternative charges?

 

[MrSki]

From what I have read on twitter he can be charged at state level & by accepting the pardon he will be admitting guilt. Also means he can be compelled to testify against Trump without being able to plead the Fifth.
This is from twitter so not sure of its accuracy.

 

[butchersapron]

I don't understand how Trump can pardon him when he hasn't yet been convicted of anything. Presumably the courts can still go ahead with alternative charges?

He has the power of amnesty - which is part of the def of pardon - which specifically applies to those pre or during trial.

 

[marty21]

He has the power of amnesty - which is part of the def of pardon - which specifically applies to those pre or during trial.

Cheers