Joe Biden’s campaign blasted the Trump administration after the arrest and indictment of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Fox News reports.
Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield told reporters Thursday that Bannon’s arrest was not a surprise.
"No one needed a federal indictment to know that Steve Bannon was a fraud," she said.
She accused the president of running “the most corrupt administration in American history.”
“He has consistently used his office to enrich himself, his family and his cronies,” she said of President Donald Trump. “Is it really a surprise that another one of the grifters he's surrounded himself with and placed in the highest levels of government was just indicted? Sadly, it is not. The American people deserve better.”
Bannon worked as chief executive of Trump’s 2016 general election campaign before becoming a top adviser to the president. He was arrested and indicated after he was linked to being involved in an online fundraising campaign that allegedly defrauded donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Bannon and co-defendant Brian Kolfage told the public that they were a "volunteer organization" and that 100% of the money raised through donations would go toward building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Those representations were false," the indictment said.
Prosecutors allege that Kolfage, Bannon, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea took money for themselves as the campaign raised upward of $25 million. The indictment claims that Bannon received more than $1 million through a nonprofit that he then used for personal expenses and to pay Kolfage.
Trump said he feels “very badly” and noted he hasn’t dealt with Bannon “for a very long period of time.”
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