Apparently, the rumors of a feud between Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon were true. In Landslide, the new book about Donald Trump's final months in office, author Michael Wolff explains that the first-son-in-law encouraged Bill Barr to indict Bannon.
Bannon had started a "charity" with allies in an attempt to fund Trump's border wall with private donations. The cash poured in for the "wall" at a time when the Trump campaign actually needed the money, having blown at least $1 billion with two months to go before the election.
Bannon's group didn't dump all of the money into the so-called wall. Instead, he and his friends skimmed millions off the top and used the rest to fund construction projects from one of their allies. Bannon was indicted along with his co-workers and was arrested while hiding out on a private yacht. At one point, Trump even directed the Department of Homeland Security to throw $400 million to Bannon for the wall scheme.
"That summer, Barr's Justice Department—with, according to some, the encouragement of the president's son-in-law—had indicted Bannon for skimming money from a not-for-profit company he had joined to raise money to actually build a border wall (not incidentally showing up Trump, whose own wall still lagged)," Wolff's tale says. "For Kushner and various others in the West Wing, dedicated in their hatred of Bannon, this indictment was a kind of double insurance that the president, beyond even his ire toward Bannon, would not ever allow him back."
Still, Bannon was able to secure a pardon, and start a podcast where Trumpists are welcome to rave about their former commander-in-chief.
Landslide is on sale now.
