Tag: Steve

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Politics

‘We Construct the Wall’ founder, linked to Steve Bannon, faces tax, fraud expenses

'We Build the Wall' founder, linked to Steve Bannon, faces tax, fraud charges

Brian Kolfage Jr., Senior Airman in the U.S. Air Force, a triple amputee who lost both his legs and arm on his second deployment to Iraq in 2004, takes part in the Veterans Day parade in the November 11, 2014 5th Avenue in New York (USA).

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Brian Kolfage, who was previously charged with Steve Bannon for his role in an allegedly fraudulent crowdfunding campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, was charged Tuesday on Tuesday on additional charges of fraud and filing a false tax return.

A federal grand jury in Florida accused Kolfage of failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income for his 2019 taxes, on recent indictments.

An indictment and a first appearance for Kolfage are scheduled for May 27 in a courthouse in Pensacola before Judge Elizabeth Timothy, court records show.

Kolfage was charged with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy in federal court in Manhattan last year along with three employees, including Bannon.

Former President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon and dozens of others on his last night in office. Trump did not apologize to Kolfage.

The allegations all stemmed from “We Build the Wall,” the alleged fundraiser to privately build parts of the border wall that Trump had promised.

The Justice Department claimed that Kolfage, who founded the campaign, and his staff defrauded “hundreds of thousands of donors” by raising millions of dollars “on the false pretext that all of this money would be spent on building” the border wall.

Instead, the defendants planned to pass some of this money on to Kolfage, “which he used to finance his lavish lifestyle,” the Justice Department said.

Harvey Steinberg, a Kolfage attorney, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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Business

Level72 founder Steve Cohen leaves Twitter after household receives threats

Point72 founder Steve Cohen leaves Twitter after family receives threats

Steven A. Cohen

Scott Eells | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Steve Cohen, the founder of Point72 hedge fund and owner of the New York Mets, turned off his Twitter account after his family received threats in the GameStop trading frenzy this week.

“I really enjoyed the back and forth with Mets fans on Twitter, which was unfortunately overtaken this week by misinformation unrelated to the Mets that resulted in our family receiving personal threats,” Cohen said in a statement on Saturday.

“So I’m taking a break for the time being. We have other options to listen to your suggestions and keep advocating,” he said.

Cohen’s hedge fund, which manages nearly $ 19 billion in assets, lost nearly 15% this year after small investors drove shares of video game retailer GameStop, a source familiar with the matter told the New York Times.

The losses at Point72 are mainly due to the company’s investment in the hedge fund Melvin Capital, which bet against GameStop and had to receive emergency money of nearly $ 3 billion from two outside investors, including Point72.

Cohen, who bought the Mets for about $ 2.5 billion in November, was faced with questions on Twitter about how Melvin’s losses would affect the baseball team.

Cohen also had a back-and-forth with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy on Twitter Thursday after Portnoy accused Cohen of being involved in controversial trade restrictions in GameStop for apps like Robinhood.

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Politics

Trump pardons Steve Bannon, Elliott Broidy, others on final night time in White Home

Trump pardons Steve Bannon, Elliott Broidy, others on last night in White House

President Donald Trump speaks at a Make America Great Again rally at the Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia.

Leah Millis | Reuters

President Donald Trump issued dozens of pardons on his last night at the White House, including one to his former campaign manager and ex-White House adviser Steve Bannon, who was accused of cheating on donors to allegedly close a border wall build Mexico.

Others who received some of Trump’s 73 pardons were great Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent last fall, and rapper Lil Wayne, who pleaded guilty to a gun charge last month

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who has served a 28-year prison sentence for fraud, has been commuted by Trump, as has Eliyahu Weinstein, who had 16 years left, in a case where he cheated hundreds serving a sentence of millions of dollars from victims in a New Jersey-based Ponzi program.

Another rapper, Kodak Black, who served a three-year prison sentence on gun charges, was also sentenced to prison. A total of 67 other people were convicted by Trump.

Trump did not apologize to himself or any of his adult children despite speculating he would, despite no pending federal criminal charges against either of them.

Bannon, former head of the conservative news site Breitbart, was arrested with several co-defendants in New York on federal charges last year but was still on trial in this case, where he was free on a $ 5 million bond.

He and the other defendants are accused of defrauding donors to a nonprofit group that allegedly intended to use the money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, a political obsession with Trump and many of his supporters.

Another pardon was Anthony Levandowski, a former engineer at Google’s self-driving car unit, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison last August for stealing more than 14,000 Google files before leaving the company to join Uber’s robocar efforts.

The judge in Levandowski’s case called it “the greatest trade secret crime I have ever seen”.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon leaves Manhattan federal court after his wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy hearing on August 20, 2020 in New York.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

Kenneth Kurson, a confidante of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, also received a pardon. Kurson, who was once the editor of a Kushner-owned newspaper in New York, was charged in Brooklyn federal court last year with cyberstalking and harassment of three people, including a former friend whom he blamed for breaking up his marriage.

Another recipient of a pardon was the conservative politician Paul Erickson, a former friend of the secret Kremlin agent Maria Butina. Erickson was sentenced to 7 years in prison last July for wire fraud and money laundering.

The pardons were the third major group of pardons Trump has issued to Joe Biden, who is due to be inaugurated as president on Wednesday, since losing his election in November.

In December, Trump pardoned the gallery of an associated criminal, including his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, Republican political agent and long-time Trump friend Roger Stone, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law Charles Kushner, and former campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.

Others Trump pardoned last month included four former Blackwater USA guards convicted of the murder of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007, disgraced ex-GOP Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, and Philips Esformes, a Florida health facility owner convicted of prosecution said it was the largest healthcare fraud ever charged by the Justice Department.

Presidential pardons only apply to federal criminal convictions. Presidents do not have the power to excuse people for state crimes.

Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, is currently under criminal investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

The investigation, which originally focused on how the company recorded hush money payments to two women who claimed to have sex with Trump – which denies their allegations – has since been expanded to include questions about how the Trump organization values ​​real estate wealth.

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Business

FAA chief Steve Dickson sees ‘disturbing enhance’ in flight disruptions

FAA chief Steve Dickson sees 'disturbing increase' in flight disruptions

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration told CNBC on Thursday that there had been a worrying spike in disruptions on commercial flights in recent days, prompting the regulator to put in place a tougher enforcement policy.

“In the past few days, there have been an increasing number of incidents on board where passengers have disrupted flights due to their behavior,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson told Squawk on the Street.

He said the episodes were partly due to leaflets violating face mask guidelines implemented during the coronavirus pandemic and also after Trump’s deadly uprising in the U.S. Capitol last week.

The FAA’s new enforcement policy comes from airlines and airports improving security ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week.

For example, American Airlines will pause alcohol service on flights to and from Washington and Baltimore from Saturday to Thursday. The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline also implemented this suspension following the Capitol uprising last week.

Delta Air Lines does not allow passengers flying to airports serving Washington to check firearms, CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC on Thursday.

Dickson said his new FAA command will temporarily bolster his longstanding approach to flight disruption.

Instead of issuing warnings or advice, the FAA intends to take legal action against “any passenger who attacks, threatens, intimidates or disturbs crew members,” a press release said. The order is valid until March 30th.

“I say inspectors, I tell my attorneys at the FAA law firm that we need to speed up fact-gathering on all of these subjects [incidents] and we will take immediate enforcement action in appropriate situations, “Dickson told CNBC.

In a letter viewed by CNBC on Monday, two key House Democrats urged the FAA to take action against unruly passengers. Lawmakers pointed to media reports of politically motivated disruptions in the days following the forcible seizure of the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.

Dickson agreed to the need to protect flight crews and passengers alike.

“Every time we see a trend like this, we need to take action because traveling on a commercial airline in the US is the safest form of travel in human history,” he said. “I want to make sure it stays that way.” “”

– CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.