{"id":108510,"date":"2025-01-14T18:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T18:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/judge-orders-steve-bannon-to-explain-why-he-switched-attorneys-close-to-fraud-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-01-14T18:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T18:04:07","slug":"judge-orders-steve-bannon-to-explain-why-he-switched-attorneys-close-to-fraud-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/judge-orders-steve-bannon-to-explain-why-he-switched-attorneys-close-to-fraud-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders Steve Bannon to explain why he switched attorneys close to fraud trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2025-01-14\/G_bannon_011425.jpg\" alt><figcaption>Victor J. Blue\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>(NEW YORK) &#8212; Steve Bannon must appear in court next week to explain why he switched lawyers so close to trial, a judge in New York ordered.<\/p>\n<p>Bannon, once a senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 25 on charges\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/steve-bannon-returns-court-ahead-trial-build-wall\/story?id=115739922\">he defrauded donors of &#8220;We Build the Wall<\/a>,&#8221; an online fundraising campaign to support a wall along the U.S. southern border.<\/p>\n<p>Bannon hired Arthur Aidala after his prior attorneys moved to withdraw from the case and Judge April Newbauer said she wanted to &#8220;make an inquiry of the defendant&#8221; before she decided whether to allow it.<\/p>\n<p>Aidala asked the judge to delay the trial&#8217;s start to give him time to read up on the case, insisting Bannon was &#8220;not looking to intentionally delay anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Manhattan district attorney&#8217;s office saw it differently, arguing Bannon was &#8220;trying to make a substitution of counsel for the purpose of delay.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bannon&#8217;s money laundering and conspiracy case was originally scheduled for trial in 2023 but has been repeatedly delayed.<\/p>\n<p>When trial does begin, prosecutors said they would ask for an anonymous jury.<\/p>\n<p>A six-count indictment in 2022 charged Bannon and &#8220;We Build the Wall&#8221; itself with two counts of money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison. There are additional felony counts of conspiracy and scheme to defraud along with one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to defraud.<\/p>\n<p>Bannon has pleaded not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor J. Blue\/Bloomberg via Getty Images (NEW YORK) &#8212; Steve Bannon must appear in court next week to explain why he switched lawyers so close to trial, a judge in New York ordered. Bannon, once a senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 25 on<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/judge-orders-steve-bannon-to-explain-why-he-switched-attorneys-close-to-fraud-trial\/\">Read More &rarr;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}