Why Steve Bannon is facing a 'maelstrom of his own making'

26 January 2024

In January 2024, lawyers who have represented far-right MAGA Republican Steve Bannon are fighting one another.

Former Bannon attorney Robert Costello and the firm Davidoff Hutcher and Citron sued Bannon for failing to pay him tensions of thousands of dollars he owed, and a judge ordered Bannon to pay $480,487. But now, Bannon's current lawyer, Harlan Protass, is trying to prevent the firm from reviewing Bannon's bank statements and finances.

The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, in an article published on January 26, lays out some reasons why the "financial colonoscopy" that Davidoff Hutcher and Citron favors and Protass opposes could create even more legal problems for Bannon.

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Pagliery explains, "Steve Bannon is in a maelstrom of his own making…. Bannon has asked a New York state judge to block Costello's law firm from perusing through his bank statements and reviewing his assets, a request that has required Bannon to awkwardly concede that his personal finances likely have evidence that could bolster the Manhattan District Attorney's case against him."

Bannon was convicted on criminal charges because of his involvement in We Build the Wall, a MAGA project for crowdfunding a U.S./Mexico border wall. The "War Room" host, according to prosecutors, defrauded donors.

"The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York criminally charged Bannon and his business partners over the ordeal in 2020," Pagliery notes, "but the one-time Trump White House chief strategist managed to score a pardon from his former boss. That pardon, however, didn't stop Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr. from going after Bannon for breaking state laws in 2022. That case is set for trial in May."

The Daily Beast reporter continues, "Bannon bizarrely ghosted his own lawyers when the DA's case got rolling in January 2023, the first signs that he was worsening his own situation. And his refusal to pay Costello seemed like a particularly stinging insult, given that Costello found himself on the wrong end of an FBI surveillance effort for working with Bannon. Meanwhile, Bannon is louder than ever — outright rejecting the American democratic system on his 'War Room' podcast and calling for a vengeful and violence-laden dictatorial return for Trump in the White House — even as his legal woes are mounting."

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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