Steve Bannon and Brian Colfage orchestrated a massive fraud within the "We the People Will Build the Wall" campaign, diverting over $1.35 million in donor funds for personal luxuries like yachts, SUVs, and cosmetic surgery between May and October 2019. Using shell companies, fake invoices, and encrypted texts to conceal their scheme, they falsely promised 100% of raised money would build a border wall while secretly enriching themselves through Nonprofit One. The U.S. Postal Service's arrest of the group on a yacht exposes how political rhetoric masked criminal greed, raising questions about accountability when public trust is exploited for private gain. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The Wall Scam Explained00:15:30
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Pods of the cast.
Ah, shit.
That wasn't...
That was just sounds.
That was just mouth sounds.
Like the great album by Neil Ciceriga, which you should check out.
This is Robert Evans introducing his podcast, Behind the Bastards, very poorly.
Miles, please come in and save me from.
Hello, Bobby.
Good to be here.
Miles Gray coming in live and direct from the city of assholes.
I mean, angels.
Miles, when you did your podcast training, which day did they teach you how to do something besides grunt incoherently while introducing a podcast?
I don't know.
I mean, I'm not.
Look, full disclosure, I faked all my podcast education.
Are you an unlicensed podcaster?
I mean, come.
Look, Robert, if anyone's like, 'I'm a 471,' God damn it.
I did.
I did.
I'm a fake man.
Shame.
I just had a mic and someone was like, hey, you're a guy.
You podcast.
I'm like, yes.
That is how it works.
That is just how it works.
If you're a guy, you're given a podcast.
In the early days, yeah, and they weren't even given.
It was just a bunch of like, like, zombies with mics being like, have this podcast.
You're now endorsed by this company that mails you things that you used to buy from the CVS.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, podcast.
Oh, boy.
Speaking of grifts, Miles, do you remember that Build the Wall?
We the People Will Build the Wall GoFundMe that raised like $25 million.
Dude, how could I forget something that on its face was like immediately visible that this was a conjugate?
It was such a beautiful scene.
We did an episode about this, which you can check out.
Katie and Cody were the guests on that one, I think.
And I don't like them anymore because I work with them on another podcast.
So I like them.
We're angry at each other now.
No, that's they're just, it's the, they're podcasting too much.
Um, be nice to them.
So we, we talked about them.
Basically, the gist of it is that this guy, Brian Colfage, who is like, he likes to brand himself as the most severely injured airman in U.S. Airman in Iraq, which might be true.
I mean, I don't know how you like measured that, but he was like horrifically wounded.
He was on his way to the gym on a base in the green zone when a mortar landed right next to him and he lost his legs and like part of an arm.
Like they, he got really fucked up, like about as badly as you can without dying.
Right.
So he came back home and he started like a fake news empire on Facebook with like all these right-wing news websites.
And he was making quite a bit of money before Facebook shut his whole network down because it was like he was breaking their terms of service a bunch with like a bunch of coordinated and authentic activity and stuff.
Oh, like all the right-wing Facebook.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they shut him down.
And when his money spigot got turned off, and there's like articles from people who worked with him at the time who said the guy has a horrible temper.
He could get like violent and stuff at the drop of a hat.
He's just a very unpleasant person, which, you know, I'm sure some of that's horrific trauma, but it doesn't excuse grifting thousands of people, which is what he did next.
So he created a GoFundMe for we the people will build the wall.
There's now confirmed evidence that they were talking with members of the Trump administration.
They had like meetings with them.
There was talk of like trying to figure out how to take the funds that they got and roll it over.
Or like, you know, there was, there was official correspondence that they had with members of the Trump campaign and like as or the Trump team.
And as soon as like this thing took off, which, you know, it was pretty much immediately raising millions of dollars, a bunch of other famous right-wing grifters got on board, including our old buddy Steve Bannon.
Eric Prince was on the board of the foundation they set up to deal with the money.
So like basically when it became clear that, you know, so the initial idea was like, we're going to raise money to give to the government so that they can build this wall.
Because the damn libs won't give it to us.
Yeah.
And that it became clear that like, that's not really how the government works.
Like you can't just, you can't just go fund me a border wall that would, number one, involve like building on massive amounts of private land and like all of this shit.
Like you just, it's not a thing that gets to be done.
So they changed the focus of it to like, we're going to actually build the wall.
And they, they, you know, because they were altering sort of the nature of what they were doing, GoFundMe allowed people to kind of opt in to continue having their money roll over into the new thing that they were doing.
And most people who donated agreed to do it.
There's a bunch of shady stuff and like their explanation of what they were doing, including the point that like the money will be used either to actually construct the wall or to engage in, you know, lobbying or whatever that will help to construct the wall.
So there's like a bunch of stuff where it's like, oh, so you're going to, it became very clear, like you're going to find ways to put this in the pockets of the very famous right-wing people who have all leapt onto this program.
Totally.
Including Steve Bannon and Eric Prince.
And, you know, one of the things they repeatedly stated when this all happened is that Brian Colfaj, who was founder and the face of the thing, was not going to receive any money, would not be paid, wasn't going to make any a dime off of this.
It was just doing it out of the goodness of his heart.
And then last week, all of these guys got arrested, including Steve Bannon, which is the best thing that's ever happened.
That Steve Bannon has now for more than a week been incarcerated.
It just slaps unbelievably hard.
The thing with that, though, like listening to these people, knowing Eric Prince is on that board, right?
He should know better than he should know better than anyone that like building like physical infrastructure on like in the United States is probably a long shot.
Like he, you have a better chance crowdfunding a private air force, I feel like, than being like, yeah, we're just gonna build chunks of border wall because, you know, fucking America.
I'm a little disappointed in Eric.
You know what I mean?
Like, he should, he knows out of anyone.
If you're going to pull some wildly illegal kind of stuff where you're trying to take the place of the government, you got to start.
You got it.
You got to be a little more surgical.
Yeah, I mean, but he doesn't.
Like, he's, he, he's committed so many more blatant crimes than this, and he always gets away with it because he's a billionaire.
That said, I don't think he was super involved with this.
Like, this was like a side piece for him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, but it is, it is.
So it's turned into this amazing story where like, again, like the fucking Steve Bannon's got arrested as a result of this.
There's pictures of him now fucking in handcuffs.
And it's, it's one of the best things that's ever happened.
And it was the best thing about it is that it was like the postal service's investigative unit, which is the first federal law enforcement agency we all learned when they arrested Steve Bannon.
Damn.
So I guess I'll say maybe not all cops are bad.
Like we've, we've got like, I'm willing to make an exception for the post office cops given what happened recently.
Yeah, exactly.
And like we said, like even with the post office under fire, like if we're going to back the blue, it's going to be the postal service.
Yeah, it's going to be the, these are the ones I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm 100% supportive of arresting Steve Bannon on a yacht.
Cut to some like wild clip of like postal, like postal police brutality.
And you're like, what the, even y'all?
I thought you were the mail cops.
No, that's, they actually committed genocide against all these different tribes.
It's like, oh, boy.
I don't know that I've never heard that the post office committed genocide.
But like, let's be honest, it wouldn't be the most surprising thing in American history.
But that I, let's not make random allegations of genocide against the postal service.
No.
Yeah.
Let's, let, we've got the charging document, which is the, um, it's basically like a podcast episode written by a United States district court, in this case, the Southern District of New York, to summarize the government's case against all of the crime doers behind the We the People Will Build the Wall con.
And I'm just going to start reading it to you, Miles.
We'll skim some parts of it when it gets boring, but like the fact that you just go.
I'm just going to read the fucking son of a bitch.
That right gets me.
I'm like, because I love sometimes, you know, are there these cases, especially in this Trump era, where just the like legal description of you, like, these people are going to be able to do it.
Amazing.
How did they think any of this was going to work or they weren't going to get caught?
I mean, the thing that's more amazing to me is that they did get caught.
Like, clearly, whatever else is going on in the world, Steve Bannon and Brian Colfaj did not have the clout they thought they had because they thought they had the clout that like Roger Stone has, where we can commit blatant crimes and we'll get forgiven for it or they'll be too scared of us to go after us.
And it just wasn't true for them.
And I don't know why entirely, but it's beautiful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe it was that it was too blatant.
Maybe it was that, you know, they didn't kiss the right asses.
I don't know what the explanation is, but let's get into it.
The grand jury charges.
One, Brian Colfage, Stephen Bannon, Andrew Battolatto, and Timothy Shea, the defendants and others, orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors, including donors in the Southern District in New York, in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign, ultimately known as We Build the Wall, that raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States.
To induce donors to donate to the campaign, Kolfaj and Bannon, each of whom, as detailed herein, exerted significant control over We Build the Wall, repeatedly and falsely assured the public that Kolfage would, quote, not take a penny in salary or compensation.
And that, quote, 100% of the funds raised will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose because, as Bannon publicly stated, we're a volunteer organization.
These representations were false.
In truth, Brian Kolfage, Stephen Bannon, Andrew Battalatto, and Timothy Shea, the defendants, collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds from We Build the Wall, which they each used in a manner inconsistent with the organization's public representations.
In particular, Kolfage covertly took more than $350,000 in funds that had been donated to We Build the Wall for his personal use.
While Bannon, through a non-profit organization under his control, Nonprofit One, received over a million dollars from We Build the Wall, which Bannon used to, among other things, secretly pay Kolfage and to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal expenses.
Dude, what is this thing going on?
Non-profit.
Oh, that was just in the charging document.
It's called non-profit.
I thought, which makes sense because it's a legal document.
I was hoping that Steve Bannon is like such a lazy schemer that he's like, oh, fuck, I got to put a nonprofit together to fucking be able to move this money around.
I call it fucking nonprofit one.
It's like my idea.
I've always wanted to create an LLC for a variety of reasons and call it unlimited liability because there's something in my brain that enjoys the idea of unlimited liability, a limited liability corporation.
Fun limited liability.
To conceal the payments to Kolfaj from We Build the Wall, Colfage, Bannon, Badolatto, and Shea devised a scheme to route these payments from We Build the Wall to Kofage indirectly through a nonprofit and a shell company under Shea's control, among other avenues.
They did so by using fake invoices and sham vendor arrangements, among other ways, to ensure, as Colfage noted in a text message to Badolato, that his pay arrangement remained confidential and kept on a need-to-know basis.
So again, committing crimes and texting about it.
Yeah.
What a hallmark of this group of people.
Just like, yep, we make our own receipts here.
I know so many people that, like, because of the protests, like won't text message about the shield materials that they're like gathering so that people can build like defensive devices to protect themselves from impact weapons.
Like they're paranoid about like gathering fucking like rubber and foam inserts and stuff.
And these guys are just like, yeah, I got to go steal a million dollars.
You guys like, here's how we're doing it.
Right.
And also use this fake vendor.
Like this fake company we set up to illegally funnel money through to do this illegal thing that we're all doing together.
You guys all down for the illegal crimes that we're committing?
Right.
It's so easy to be a conservative.
We are defrauding the American people with our build a wall scheme.
Please like, please use the tap back in your messages app and your iPhone to confirm that you are culpable.
I know people who live in paranoia because they're getting followed as a result of bringing water every night to demonstrations.
Right.
And like, this shit is audacious nonsense.
Fucking hell.
On or around December 17th, 2018, Brian Colfage, the defendant, with the assistance of others, launched a fundraising campaign originally called We the People Build the Wall on a crowdfunding website.
The crowdfunding website.
That's how it's referred to in the document.
It's GoFundMe.
According to statements on the webpage for We the People Build the Wall on the crowdfunding website, which is a very funny, it just looks very silly in this.
You can't say that without laughing.
Yeah.
The crowdfunding website.
Like, come on, guys.
Yeah, this is like when a fucking movie uses some sort of fake Google thing, like researcher or whatever.
It's like, come on, guy.
We know it's Google.
The campaign was raising funds to donate to the United States federal government for construction of a wall at the southern border of the United States.
The webpage also stated that 100% of your donations would be given to the government for the construction of a wall, and that if the campaign could not attain its goal, it would refund every single penny.
The We the People Build the Wall campaign was an immediate fundraising success.
Within the first week, Brian Colfage, the defendant, with the assistance of Timothy Shea, the defendant, raised approximately $17 million.
Despite its early success, the campaign also drew scrutiny, including questions about Kolfaj's background and the campaign's plan to give the money raised to the federal government.
Based on those concerns, in or around December 2018, GoFundMe, which they the crowdfunding website, suspended the campaign, which by that point had raised more than $20 million and warned Brian Kolfaj, the defendant, that unless he identified a legitimate nonprofit organization into which these funds could be transferred, the crowdfunding website would return the funds.
At around the same time, Brian Colfaj, the defendant, involved Stephen Bannon and Andrew Battolato, the defendants, in the leadership of the campaign.
Bannon, a political strategist and former media executive, and Batolato, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, were already working together on Nonprofit One, which was a separate Section 501c4 organization founded by Bannon with the stated purpose of promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty.
Fascism.
Oh, we can call that one fascism, right?
Economic nationalism.
That's very fascinating.
Fucking fascist.
And he uses his fun, fancy, fascist nonprofit to funnel donations into illegally, which is just very on brand.
Within days of becoming involved, Stephen Bannon and Andrew Badolato, the defendants, took significant control of the fundraising campaign's organization and day-to-day activities.
Weaponizing Fear for Profit00:08:21
So basically, they immediately took control of We the People Will Build the Wall.
And by like late December 2018, they were basically in charge and they created a new 501c4 called We Build the Wall Inc.
And they proposed that the money, you know, would be transferred there.
A non-profit, yeah, We Build the Wall Inc.
Yeah, yeah, a nonprofit to build to finance private construction of a wall along the southern border.
So yeah, and they gave a bunch of assurances to GoFundMe that like this was all legitimate and the money would all go to action like to this to this new 501c4 they'd founded in order to induce GoFundMe to release the donor funds.
These insurances include, I'm quoting again, these assurances included, among other things, written bylaws with conflict of interest provisions and compensation restrictions precluding insiders like Kolfage, among others, from inappropriately misusing donor funds and a promise that Kolfaj will take no salary and will personally not take a penny of compensation from these donations.
Kolfage, Bannon, and Badolato also agreed that donors would have to opt in to having their contribution redirected from the crowdfunding website to We Build the Wall.
So they hung themselves here.
They like they made a legal document promising that in no way would, among other things, Kolfaj get any money from this because it was the only way to get the money.
Yeah.
And they just assumed it would be fine because so many other crimes that these people and their friends committed were fine.
It's like how scumbag men think too, like with sex.
It's like, well, what do I to say?
To have sex, you know, and after.
I may not mean it, but i'm so just short-sighted about my own gratification, I will deceive and lie just to get there, without any thinking of like where that goes after the fact, and I just love that.
Like this scam is so American and that like you're weaponizing, like the fear of black and brown people to then enrich yourself, and like when really you could give a about any of it, aside from purely just being like oh, this is great, this is a great group of just dummies to just rinse.
Yeah it's, it's evidence of what those of us who are are vaguely aware of, like objective reality um, have known for a long time, which is that, like almost none of these fascists with the exception of really like Stephen Miller and a couple others almost none of them believe in what they're saying.
It's just the best way to get what they want, which is money and power.
Like if these guys, if their primary concern was illegal immigration, they would have tried to you, they would have used this money to in some way fuck over migrants, right?
Yeah like, whether or not it was the wall, that's what they would have done with this huge amount of money um, and they would have gotten nothing but praise from the donors, even if it wasn't a wall, even it was some other way of hurting these people um, but they didn't even really care about hurting those people.
They just wanted to steal and it's awesome, it's so good that in this one rare instance they faced consequences.
Yeah, I mean, you hate to see it and you love to see it.
Yeah, you know it's it's.
Yeah, it's so good, it's so audacious.
But again, I don't know ever, every time like, even whenever we, I come on this show yeah it's, we're.
I'm always like, damn the audacity of these people.
But that really is the true dna of a true historical piece of shit.
Bastard is you really?
You have a?
You're just all about yourself and there's absolutely zero consideration for anything aside for your own like, just your very own personal lived experience.
Yeah, and it works for them usually, because it's an effective strategy in winning in our system is to only give a shit about yourself and be like sociopathically dedicated to nothing but your own enrichment.
Right like right.
That works in a lot of ways, except for occasionally you get arrested on a yacht by the post office in a way, I wonder if you're pissed, you're like fuck it's.
I thought it would be at least like the FEDS or something like the FED FEDS, it's the POST.
Did you have to wear that hat too?
Like a mail?
I hope they did.
I hope they're.
They're exactly the same as a normal swat team, but with the hats yeah just, and not even the tat gear.
Like they don't even have weapons.
They're just like very coordinated group of mail carriers that are like we're if we can do this without weapons, oh I would.
I wouldn't with a group of mail delivery.
Well, here I mean essentially, I mean the amount of veterans that work for the postal service too.
I'm like you're actually dealing with people with some experience in the military as well.
So yeah uh so man uh, beginning in january 2019, the defendants caused we build the wall to mislead donors, promising them repeatedly that 100 of the Funds would be used for construction of a wall and that Kolfage, in particular, would take no salary or compensation.
And obviously, contrary to this, they were immediately misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds for their own benefit.
Beginning on around January 11th, 2019, and consistent with the assurances provided to the crowdfunding website, We Build the Wall announced that it had changed its mission to the private construction of a wall and that donors needed to opt in.
Yeah, and that worked out.
And it seemed like, you know, the document is alleging that this worked because of their promise that 100% of the funds raised would be used towards the construction of a wall and that not a penny would be used to compensate Kolfaj.
They repeatedly made these preparations.
Like, they're stating basically over and over again, they couldn't stop making these promises.
And their making these promises is why so many people are willing to like donate the money.
And it's why it's so easy for us to prove that they repeatedly broke the law.
And yeah, I'm sure like the comments of the Trump family helped too, because I remember like Don Jr. was like, look at this man.
Like, this is an example of American enterprise or some shit.
And like the whole idea.
He's a hero.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's going to, there they're quote, doing it better, faster, and cheaper than anything else.
Like, yeah, definitely cheaper and shittier than anything else.
If I had to choose between the government spending hundreds of millions of dollars on incomplete sections of wall that are easily breached or $12 million on nothing, I would, I will choose the nothing.
Also, because I prefer there not be any wall on the southern border or federal.
Yes.
And in fact, if we could just spend $25 million a year and have it go to right-wing grifters and have an open border on the south, I would make that compromise.
That's something I'm willing to get on board with.
Right, right, right.
They're like, dude, just take your money and fuck off.
Just take your money and stop fucking with these people.
Also, just so you know, we just printed a bunch of that shit.
We don't know how much it's really worth.
Yeah.
So Kolfaj posted messages on social media that included representations such as, We promised 100% of the funds raised only go to border wall construction.
All money donated to We Build the Wall goes directly to wall, to wall, not anyone's pocket.
I'm taking nothing.
Zero.
In fact, Kolfaj went so far as to send mass emails to his donors asking them to purchase coffee from his unrelated business, telling donors that the coffee company was the only way he keeps his family fed and a roof over their head because Kolfaj was taking no compensation from We Build the Wall.
He couldn't stop double dipping.
Wow.
Like, none of them have any sort of self-control.
They can't fucking double dip.
It's.
Hey, that man, again, even when you add the layers of just balls to this, where you're like, dude, I'm fucking stealing from you.
And then I'm also going to have my shitty coffee company and then bilk you for more cash from there.
My hat's off to him.
Hey, Robert.
Robert, you know who doesn't sponsor this show?
That shitty coffee company.
But you know who does sponsor this show?
Oh, the good people at Raytheon.
Yeah.
Yes, Raytheon.
Miles, you know what's better than a border wall for stopping migrants from crossing the border?
Oh, yeah, predator drones.
Predator drones armed with the new RX-9 knife missile.
Yes, the knife missile allows you to knife people from the sky using the power of the federal government and gravity.
Less of a factor.
You know, the beauty of Raytheon technology is that it functions equally well in a zero-g environment.
So that when in the inevitable future, we have moon refugees.
We'll be able to shoot them with knife missiles too, Miles.
That's the promise of Raytheon.
Actually, you're saying it wrong.
Raytheon's Predator Drones00:03:23
It's Graytheon.
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Crowdfunding Political Liabilities00:15:31
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We're back.
All right.
So yeah, again, it goes on for a while, for like another page or so, about how many different ways he promised in public and in a binding legal manner that he would take no compensation from this.
And how often all of the defendants, including Steve Bannon, signed off in one way or another and promoted the fact that he would take no.
Like all of this seems to be resting on the fact that Brian Colfaj specifically got money from this.
And none of them, they just, no one thought anyone would notice anything.
I don't, it's, I can't get my head around it.
Do you think because like they were just sort of being like, if we hide behind this person whose body was mangled in war and that will sort of get like sort of give him this position where you wouldn't dare question their patriotism?
Like in that like they were also sort of like getting really hyped up on that idea too for like the whole sort of grift of it all.
Yeah, I think they figured that like they could, that nobody on the right and nobody in the Trump administration would ever allow anything bad to happen to Colfaj.
Because he's it, but like and the thing it's the same.
I don't know we'll see how this situation in Kenosha with the mass shooter goes, but like, the Trump campaign's initial thing was to be like oh, he's not affiliated with us in any way.
We support what law enforcement did um, in arresting and charging him with murder.
Um, you know, we'll see, because obviously there's folks in the right that want to like, adopt that kid as a mascot.
I don't know what the Trump I think he's actually speaking at the RNC later.
I don't actually know like, what Trump and all are gonna wind up doing about this, but like, the initial thing they did was what their actual initial reaction is, which is oh, this person's a liability, let's jettison them immediately.
Maybe they'll decide against that.
But like that's what they've done with Cofage.
Like they haven't, they haven't made any sort of a stink about the arrest of Cofage or Bannon, they've just been like yep, they shouldn't have up and broken the law.
We support law enforcement because like no, they don't give a shit about you, right.
Oh, they're they.
Their hearts must be breaking right now.
Yeah it's, they're like what the fuck Steve, you said it'd be fine, so let's go on to just how fucking blatant this is.
So the the document continues to note, in developing their strategy of emphasizing to donors that Cofage would not be paid a dime, Bannon and Battolato, in a text message exchange, discussed how that message would help drive fundraising and opt-ins by prior donors because it would, as Badolato stated, become the most talked about media narrative ever, since.
It removes all self-interest taint and gives Brian Cofage sainthood.
For that reason, Battalotto insisted that the statement that Cofage will not take a penny of compensation be included in the email to web the walls donors about the opt-in process, explaining in an email that his statement was a material item to donors.
Again, let us all state clearly in text messages how like that we are committing a crime, that we are making legally binding promises that we intend to break.
Let's just all talk about that very clearly.
Text messages, no like.
Don't even use the finesse of like voice messages back and forth uh, some kind of temporary transmission, whatever.
Just yeah, just cement it all there.
I mean, they made it really easy for the Postal Investigative Service.
What are they technically called Uspis or something?
Yeah, something like that.
Okay yeah, shout out to them the POST Office cops, the only cops that i'm supportive of, until somebody tells me about the horrible things that they've done um, i'm sure, and then we'll have another episode behind the police cops.
All I know is that they arrest fascists on yachts.
I speak for all of your listeners.
Can you stop?
Can you stop predicting things?
Hey, going to choose for a moment to believe that there's a law enforcement agency who, just who?
Just arrests yacht fascists.
I want to believe in something, and I'm choosing to believe in this for the moment.
Yeah.
I mean, it should stop.
It's just saying horrible things about everything and then it happening.
Like all of us would be like super appreciative if you could like predict something good.
I'm going to predict that the only other thing the post office cops do is arrest people who illegally mail kittens.
They're just out there protecting kittens and arresting fascists.
I have decided to believe this.
Okay.
And making like some of the best like sort of small batch artisanal ice cream you've ever tasted.
Yeah, they make ice cream for some reason too.
And it's apparently great.
That's amazing.
So, yeah.
That's a world I want to live in.
So, moreover, the thing goes on to note, the defendants conveyed that others in the leadership of We Build the Wall and its advisory board, which Bannon shared, would not be compensated.
For example, Colfage wrote on social media, I thought it was pretty clear.
I made a promise that I would never take a penny.
100% of fundraising through donations will only go towards the wall.
100% means 100%, right?
Board won't see any of that money.
So they just kept promising that everything they were going to do was, yeah, it's just a little bit more.
Yeah, cut to their texture.
They're like, 100% means fucking maybe 5%.
Board will see as much of that money as they want.
All right.
So what are we telling them?
This next part's heartbreaking.
So this goes into like how many of the donors believed what he was saying.
Donors took notice of this core narrative and told Brian Colfaj, the defendant, and others working for We Build the Wall that it mattered to them.
Some of those donors wrote directly to Colfaj that they did not have a lot of money and were skeptical about online fundraising campaigns, but they were giving what they could because they trusted Colfaj would keep his word about how their donations would be spent.
Colfage also wrote to prospective donors who raised concerns, assuring the donors in private messages that he was not being compensated.
These false assurances successfully induced donors to give money to We Build the Wall and opt in to have their prior donations transferred to We Build the Wall's new nonprofit entity.
Of the original 20 million raised from hundreds of thousands of donors, most of the donors agreed to opt in.
So that I didn't realize, but the fact that they even have that, that like, no, no, no, individual donors who didn't have much money personally reached out to Brian with their concerns and he lied to these people to their faces is it's so sweet.
It's so perfect.
Yeah.
It's so, I mean, it's so Trump University too, you know, where people are like, you know, it's like their last shot at this.
This is my dialysis money.
Yeah.
And in this case, it's like, I want to brutalize the brown people.
Don't go spending it on something.
Yeah, I know, but it's just so funny that like even then, right?
They're so committed to this like, you know, fear of a black and brown America that they're just sort of like, you know, giving their last material like bit of like wealth they have to this stupid mirage of racism.
Yep.
And it's one of those things like people, I do, like people ask why I don't do more crowdfunding stuff.
And it is because like when you do crowdfunding stuff, you get donations from people who will make statements like that.
They're like, hey, I believe in what you're doing.
I don't have much money.
But I feel like I felt like a piece of shit every time that's happened.
So I would rather take, I would rather, you know, be paid by advertisers than someone give me like their last dime or something.
Yeah, I don't, I just don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want that on my fucking conscience.
I don't want to like, oh, and now I'm spending the money, you know, on Grubhub tonight or whatever, or like I write a pizza.
Right.
And it's like, oh, fuck, this was this, like, I, I don't want to, of course.
It just, no, I will sell products and services.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's like, that's my line.
I'm not saying it's immoral to crowdfund.
I think it's fine.
A lot of my friends make their living that way.
It just like it fucked me up.
And I'll probably do something like it again.
But I'll again repeatedly beg people, please don't donate money if you don't have money.
It's not important.
To my rich friends only.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
So, um, despite these repeated assurances, okay, so this is, yeah, despite these repeated assurances, the public narrative deliberately crafted by the defendants and others was false.
In fact, although We Build the Wall spent money on the construction of a border wall, hundreds of thousands of dollars were siphoned out of We Build the Wall for the private use and benefit of the defendants.
Indeed, despite Kofage's numerous public statements that he was not taking a salary or getting a penny in compensation, within days of launching We Build the Wall, Kofage, working primarily with Bannon and Battolato, reached a secret agreement whereby Kolfaj would be covertly paid $100,000 up front and then $20,000 a month.
Jesus.
Because that arrangement was directly contrary to the defendant's repeated public representations.
The defendants and others schemed to pass these payments to Kolfaj indirectly through third parties, including entities under the control of Bannon and Shea.
So yeah, this is the stuff that we, you know, we talked about.
Bannon made it clear in a text message to Batolato that there would be no deals I don't approve and directed that Kolfage be paid indirectly through Nonprofit One in an attempt to conceal the payments from the public, notwithstanding the fact that Kofage did no work for Nonprofit One and that the payments from Nonprofit One to Colfage would be funded by We Build the Wall.
So yeah, there's text messages between Bannon and Battolato talking about what Kolfaj's salary would be.
Bannon directs the wiring of money illegally from the campaign to this.
Yeah, like they've got Bannon dead to fucking rights, it sounds like.
Like he's discussing, here are the crimes we will commit.
These are crimes because we have to keep these crimes secret because they're illegal.
Here's how I'm going to do that.
And then we have him personally like doing the wire payments and stuff.
That's amazing.
Right.
Oh, God.
This next part.
When Kofage later noted in a text message to Batolato that, at least in part, as a result of these pass-through payments, We Build the Wall would have to disclose substantial payments to Nonprofit One on tax forms.
Batolato replied, Better you than me, LOL.
LOL.
Stupid pieces of shit.
Yeah, lawfully, officially, I don't know.
Like, what?
Did you just that whole sentence?
I mean, wow, at every turn, like, you had to be like, wink, wink.
Like, it almost could have been that.
You know what I mean?
To seal the payments Kofage received from nonprofit ONE, Kofage instructed Battolato that the payments should be made to Kolfaj's spouse and that non-profit ONE Significant and non-profit ONE subsequently issued a form 1099, falsely stating that it had paid Cofage's spouse for media.
So that's just like.
Hey, you know, what we should do is falsify some government documents.
Yep, I paid you for media okay.
Now if they ask what happened, was you held?
Uh, you took some photos of me for instagram.
Yeah incredible, these like there was a lot of like those like fake ass vendors was always like vague right, like media, like social media or some shit.
Yeah, for media like he's fucking assholes.
Thereafter, beginning in or around april 2019, and to further conceal payments of We Build The Wall funds to Brian Kolfage, the defendant And his secret monthly salary of approximately $20,000 was passed indirectly through other third-party entities that were purported vendors for WE Build The WALL, including one under the control of Timothy Shea, the defendant.
Starting in or around March 2019, Shea, who had been involved in early operations for the predecessor campaign to We Build the Wall and was familiar with its repeated promises, proposed in a text message exchange with Colfaj, paying Colfaj and himself out of a veiled shell corporation to conceal the source and nature of the payments.
Shea suggested that to conceal transactions where, for instance, $600,000 comes in and he transfers $300K to Colfaj, they could create companies that hired Kolfaj and Shea for his service, like consulting to further conceal the secret arrangement.
Kolfaj told Shea in an email that they could falsely describe the payments from the new shell entity to Colfaj as for social media.
Love it.
Love it.
It's just, I mean, because, yeah, those forms, it just really feels like when you're like being lazy and trying to do your taxes, you're like, I don't know.
Yeah, that business, internet, social media, sure.
And it's just my salary.
Yep.
It's the best.
That's when, like, at one point, too, right?
Didn't they like kind of wise up that like they were kind of being sloppy with it?
Because I feel like I remember at the beginning of this year.
Yeah, okay, here we go.
Um, yeah, the memo lines on these payments.
Yeah, sorry, again, on or around May 21st, 2019, uh, Shell Company one received a $30,000 wire from Rebuild the Wall.
Uh, then it got, you know, paid $20,000 to Colfaj.
The memo lines on these payments falsely stated that they were for social media accounts and pages when neither Colfage nor anyone else had done such work for Shell.
Have them at least do fake work.
Yeah, like put in the ass on the fucking Donald Trump subreddit to get you some fucking memes, some shit posts or something.
Yeah.
Moreover, additional $20,000 payments were made to Colfage and funded with money from We Build the Wall.
These payments were made in subsequent months until at least October 2019, when, as discussed below, the defendants learned that they might be under criminal investigation.
Oh, God, that's good.
Oh, that was.
They must have been.
Dude, I can only imagine how much Steve Bannon's stress sweat was just stinking out whatever room he was in.
Oh, that he's realizing this.
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, I hope there were respirators left over from the fighting in Portland for those post office guys to deal with that.
To board that stink.
To board that stink out.
I'll donate mine.
Yeah, right.
They're like, honestly, we would sort of confiscate this and maybe auction it up.
But yeah, we're just going to have to scuttle this thing.
We're going to have to burn this thing in the sea.
We'll bring it in.
Artificial reef, like coral and wildly.
Shoot it into, get, get, get Elon Musk in here and shoot it into space like that car of his.
We can't put this in the ocean.
It's been too much.
This makes it too toxic.
Oh, gosh.
So, yeah.
What kind of like measures did they take when they were like, uh-oh, guys, I think we might be doing something bad that the police are noticing?
Yeah, let's get down.
So from the start of the creation of We Build the Wall in January to October 2019, Brian received more than $350,000 in donor funds passed in directly with the assistance of the other defendants.
Colfage used those funds to pay for his own private expenses, including, among other purposes, home renovations payments towards a boat, a luxury XUV, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments, and credit card debt.
Who got cosmetic surgery?
He did, probably.
I mean, he has, he's horribly injured.
Like, it might not even be a vanity thing.
It might be like a...
Oh, like an actual medical procedure for his.
Yeah, he's horribly, horribly.
I'm not going to like, like, he's committing crimes to get the money, but like, I don't even know.
I don't know that it was like a vanity thing.
Yeah, yeah, that he's suddenly coming up with like a like beautiful full lips and like no wrinkles on his forehead.
Blatant Donor Funds00:06:31
I don't see evidence of that.
It's probably related to his injuries.
Unless we like really look and it's like, oh.
Oh, no, no.
Somebody got an ass.
He had an ass injection.
They really, I mean, you know, the guy committed some crimes, but like, god damn, they uh he's double, he's triple C thick now.
Whoever's doing his work, you know, they knew what they were doing.
So, moreover, in addition to Brian Colfaj, the defendant Steve Bannon, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea, the defendants, each received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds from We Build the Wall, which they each used to pay for a variety of personal expenses, including, among other things, travel, hotels, consumer goods, and personal credit card debts.
In addition to the payments described above to Colfaj, with respect to Bannon, in particular, as noted above, nonprofit one received over a million dollars from We Build the Wall.
And while some of that money was used to pay Colfaj, Bannon was used a substantial portion of those donor funds for personal uses and expenses unrelated to We Build the Wall.
None of these payments were disclosed to the public.
Instead, they repeatedly lied to the public about where the money was going.
Indeed, as Colfage noted to Batalato in a text message exchange, as far as the public knows, no one is getting paid and salaries will never be disclosed.
Oh my god.
Don't worry.
We'll crime through it.
Oh my god.
These idiot victims will have no idea of how hard we're criming, bros.
You know who's not watching us?
The post office cops.
Oh my god.
They can eat a dick.
Fuck those guys.
Didn't they like use like encrypted messaging apps too?
Like, I felt like that was one of the things.
Like, they thought they were getting real smart, even though they did all this other shit that could be found.
I don't know.
It actually does just say text messages, but maybe.
You'd have to think, right?
Like, I would say you'd have to think they would at least be careful enough to use like, you know, signal or something.
But like, they're so blatant about this.
Maybe they were just fucking texting.
I don't know.
Because when you consider like Paul Manafort was like, how do you make PDF of my fake bank account?
It's like, oh, boys, come on, don't email that shit.
Just googling crimes and see if that pops up with a question mark.
How to do fake bank account PDF?
Like, what?
Also, Robert, it's time for an ad break.
Just a thought.
Yeah.
You know what also won't?
You know what isn't a crime?
Products and services.
I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really started making money.
It's financial literacy month, and the podcast Eating Wall Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.
This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.
If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what?
Today, now, obviously, it's like 100%.
They believe everything.
But at first, it was just like, you got to go get a real job.
There's an economic component to communities thriving.
If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail.
And what I mean by fail is they don't have money to pay for food.
They cannot feed their kids.
They do not have homes.
Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them.
Listen to Eating Wall Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.
Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing.
I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between.
This season on Math and Magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate Mike Milken, take-to interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.
If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business.
Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey.
Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top.
Listen to Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budgetista Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught.
Financial education is not always about like, I'm going to get rich.
That's great.
It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family.
If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
If you're watching the latest season of the Real House Wise of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.
Marcia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man.
They holding Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew.
Pinky has financial issues.
I like the bougie style of Housewives show.
I think it looks like it's going to be interesting.
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At the end of the day, when people are at home, they want entertainment.
To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
We're back and we're talking about We Build the Wall, which was the most real thing ever created.
It just feels like somebody's going to like write like some, when you say We Build the Wall, I just like imagine like a little song that comes on after that.
Wire Fraud Scheme Exposed00:13:39
We build the wall.
Yeah, literally.
Yeah, it has to sound like a really terrible local business ad.
Like you're not going to get a good jingle out of that.
No, no.
So in or around October 2019, Brian Kolfaj, Stephen Bannon, Andrew Bottolato, the other defendants, all learned from a financial institution that We Build the Wall might be under federal criminal investigation.
The defendants thereafter took additional steps to conceal the fraudulent scheme detailed below.
For example, around that time and in reaction to the potential investigation, Kolfaj and Battelato began using encrypted messaging apps on their phone.
So that's when they started.
It's October.
October.
All year they're like, hey guys, how are the crimes we're doing going?
Still criminal?
All right.
Good crimes, everybody.
Keep criming hard.
You may be under investigation.
Fuck.
Crying out with your time out.
Like time, like the spice.
There you go.
That's as good as I could come up with in that moment.
Yeah.
Again, the stress sweat, you know, amazing.
That's so clear, right?
You find out you're under investigation and then you switch to encrypted messages.
And as soon as they find out, We Build the Wall's website was changed to remove any mention of the promise that Kofaj was not being compensated and to add a statement that he would be paid a salary starting in January 2020.
Yeah, because none of that's cash or anything.
So they stopped paying him secret payments and announced that he was about to start getting a salary after promising the opposite for months for like a year and just hoped that that would be okay.
Yeah, why not?
You know, maybe just, oh, oh, you hate to see it and you also love to see it.
It's so good.
It's just one of the best things that's ever happened.
Yeah.
I remember very happy about all this.
Like when it happened, wasn't didn't wasn't that like a news headline when he announced he was getting a salary?
And that's when people were like, hold the fuck on.
Because first, like the sort of public perception was like, where's that fucking wall you're building?
It's not there.
And I was like, it's a scheme.
And then it's like, okay, that guy's going to get like 100 grand.
And people are like, what the fuck?
No.
Yeah, but where's the fucking wall?
Yeah.
It's blowing over in the fucking wind or whatever.
And it's amazing.
I wonder, I wonder what they thought would happen with this.
Because they weren't building a wall.
They did like a couple of sample chunks, but like they never did anything meaningful.
And their whole promise was that like, we'll do it faster and cheaper than the government.
So we'll be able to actually afford to do it.
And they were they just kind of like pretend it failed?
Well, they had like one certain spots built and then like every engineer and like hydrologist was like, this is gonna fucking just fall apart.
You know, that's terrible.
You didn't build it.
It's not even built the right depth.
Like none of this is done correctly.
So I wonder if, you know, like I'm trying to really put myself in that schemer mode.
Like if, okay, I'm in too deep.
How am I going to get my way out of it?
I would probably begin some like NIMBY argument about how like these regulations are like stopping us while I'm slowly building some kind of like escape pod to leave to some country without an extradition treatment.
Yeah, I do.
I do like people have compared this to the famous monorail episode of The Simpsons.
And I do kind of feel like their plan was just a cartoon drawing of themselves flying to Acapulco with a bag of cash.
Right.
Is there a chance the wall could bend?
Not a chance, my bigot friend.
I think the jingle should be still symbol to the Cars for Kids song.
It should be.
You know that cars.
Here, kids.
1-800 walls for bigots.
There you go.
Amazing.
So let's get down to the good shit.
Forfeiture allegations.
This is the good shit.
It's all the good shit.
Everything up until this point has been like a bizarre comedy of errors.
They skipped a few pages because it was all just like repeatedly restating in different ways they committed wire fraud blatantly, which they did.
As a result of committing the offense alleged in Count 1 of this indictment, Brian Colfage, Stephen Bannon, Andrew Battolato, and Timothy Shea, the defendant, shall forfeit to the United States pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 9.
Any and all property, real and personal, that constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the Commission of said offense, including but not limited to a sum of money in the United States currency representing the amount of proceeds traceable to the commission of said offense and the following specific property.
So it then lists a bunch of different funds contained.
And wow, there's a lot of bank accounts they put this money into.
God, I'm on page two.
Okay, so like there's like two pages of different bank accounts they threw money into, and then we get into property.
So number one, the real property is described as a 2019 Jupiter Marine boat named Warfighter.
The real property.
Yeah, I think that's the yacht that Kolfaj got.
As a result of committing the offense alleged in Count 2 of this indictment, the defendant shall forfeit to the United States any and all property, yada, yada.
So yeah, they got to give up all the fucking shit that they got.
Aw, Warfighter.
They committed a bunch.
Yeah, he loses his boat, Warfighter.
I mean, that's a good looking boat.
It is.
It had four engines.
Yeah.
The irony was like he was sailing in that thing in the 4th of July, like Trump boat parade in Florida.
He sure was.
He sure was.
And then he got arrested by the fucking post office and they're going to take that boat.
And it's very funny.
There is something poetic about him in a boat, like just decked out in Trump flags, the boat being purchased with funds he grifted.
It's just like, he completes the visual circle in that moment.
It's so much better than I ever thought anything could be.
I've gotten a lot of credit over the last year or so in particular in predicting a bunch of things.
And I can tell you honestly, never in my life did I expect post office to arrest Steve Bannon on a yacht would be aone's 2020 bingo card.
Nobody called, especially not Steve Bannon.
I guess the post office might have predicted it.
Yeah, 100%.
Oh, God.
I so badly, you know, like there are so many like just dark, messy dimensions about this entire administration, but like this sort of falls into like Wolf of Wall Street territory where you just like watch these guys get in over their heads with their greed.
And then I want like that second act and third act is probably so great when you start seeing it fall apart because I would love to see a dramatic, like a dramaticized version of these fucking losers just panicking over the fact that their entire shit has just been exposed.
And then like all these terrible superficial band-aid fixes to it.
Yeah.
And I want to state I was wrong a little bit earlier.
Kofaj was released within hours of being arrested.
He's on bond at the moment.
He's pled not guilty.
And Bannon was released not long after he was arrested on $5 million of bond.
His travel is restricted to New York and Washington, D.C., and he can't use private boats or jets without permission.
So we'll see.
We'll see what actually happens here in terms of justice.
They got arrested.
It seems like a pretty open and shut case, to be honest, what with them repeatedly bragging about it.
And as a rule, when the Fed, when any kind of federal agency does something like this, they feel like they have a pretty airtight case.
Oh, yeah.
And I mean, when you, but again, it's like, it's so comedic because it's the confessions are all there.
Like there, I don't know how, what lawyer is going to argue that they're not guilty.
Like, how are you going to explain the better you than me LOL text?
Like, how?
Yeah, I'm sure they've got some sort of like, whatever.
They'll try.
They'll try, but I'm just saying it makes me cringe because you're going in there with such like an intellectually bankrupt defense.
And like, I get stressed.
I'm like, oh, man, you're not going to, like, you know, sometimes you can get your way.
I worm your way out of shit, but this one is a little too tough.
I think if anything, it's, it's in the sentencing that we really see the lack of justice.
Because I think what they're looking at, like, 20 years for each charge, essentially.
But really?
Yeah.
We'll see.
I'd be surprised if it's like, you know, two years.
They're going to get the Aunt Becky treatment.
Oh, two seconds?
I doubt it'll be a crazy amount of time.
I don't know.
You know, everyone seems to hate Steve Bannon a lot.
And he committed a bunch of crimes and he has no more friends.
Yeah.
So, you know, if Steve Bannon gets anything more than a year, I'm going to consider this a big win because then Steve Bannon's in a fucking prison for a while and I hate him.
And he sucks.
And it would be awesome if he actually faced a consequence for one of the terrible things he did.
Steve, no friends, Bannon.
Is that on your bingo card for 2020?
Justice for Steve Bannon?
I never thought.
I thought he was just going to live in the fascist castle that he was buying in Italy with an army of brainwashed militants for decades until dying of cirrhosis.
I thought he was just going to sit like in a chair and just slowly decompose.
Yeah, I mean, he looks like, I won't be mean.
I won't be mean.
I won't be mean.
I just assumed he was going to die the death of a successful fascist, which is, again, in a castle in Italy.
Right.
Yeah, but maybe he'll go to prison and reform himself and become the new face of the green movement.
I don't think that's likely, but it would be kind of funny.
Yeah, well, you know, thoughts and prayers.
Thoughts and prayers to Steve and Brian and who these other guys.
No more friends.
So, Miles, this was fun.
How can people find you on the internet if they want to see things that you've done that aren't reading a female charging document?
Really, I do a daily podcast, daily zeitgeist, but really, you do.
If you need an escape, check my show out with Sophia Alexandra for 20-day fiancé.
You know, the bastard pods followers love Sophia.
We get together, get just stony baloney, and just talk about our favorite reality show because, you know, that's a real escape sometimes.
So check that out wherever you get your podcasts.
Oh, yeah.
And we do this thing now where I do a terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, and then I say Arnold Schwarzenegger is a guest, and then the podcast app will tag Arnold Schwarzenegger as a guest on the show.
So if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, come by.
You'll love to hear it.
You do love to hear it.
And the other thing you love to do is commit wire fraud, which I have on good authority never ends badly.
So that's my advice to listeners is to go fraud some wires.
Fraud the hell out of it.
Fraud it up.
Yeah, find some wires, fraud the sons of bitches.
Get it on.
Boom.
You know, or you could like follow Robert on Twitter at iRideOK.
Could follow us on Twitter and Instagram at BastardsPod.
We have a TeePublic store with lots of different merchandise.
And wash your hands and wear a face mask.
Yeah, wash your hands, wear a face mask, commit a lot of wire fraud.
Just I get it.
I can't exaggerate how good an idea it is to commit wire fraud.
And text your friends about the wire fraud you plan to commit.
Really just get in there.
You know, send them letters too about the wire fraud.
I have it on good authority.
The post office is not watching.
And also, yeah, have those letters notarized as well.
So you can really just make sure all the correspondence is fully locked in and you're not, there's no miscommunication.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Be really clear.
Make sure whenever you're committing crimes to outline the crime that you're committing and your knowledge that it's a crime.
Right.
That's a double jeopardy, if I understand what double jeopardy is.
Yep.
Perfect.
You should be their lawyer.
Yeah.
I would love to be Steve Bannon.
I will take that gig.
You know what?
I will quit podcasting if they want me to defend the legal case.
How would you do it?
Like, obviously, you know you're going to lose.
So would you just try some hairbrain shit or would you just be, I mean, obviously you got to kind of work them together.
You know, Miles, I think I would take the most asset I've ever taken and just see where that leads me.
You know, I've never been in a courtroom on LSD.
Right.
But I bet I could defend two people from charges of wire fraud.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Because then, yeah, when they have to be like, and what of this text message?
Can you read this one, Mr. Bannon?
I might turn out to be like that guy who pitched a no-hitter on a headphilic.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
Like that, but defending people against charges of blatant wire fraud.
Oh, yes.
That is one of the great tales of Doc Ellis's ride.
Yeah, Doc Ellis on so much acid, pitched a no-hitter.
I will be the Doc Ellis of fascists committing wire fraud.
In a court of law.
That'll be act three of or four of my career.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah, Robert kind of lost himself in those later years, but he just kept taking acid and defending Nazis from wire fraud.
But in a way, he was the greatest giver of justice because every single person got the maximum sentence based off his hairbrain defenses.
And people to this day don't know why these people agreed to have him defend them.
Doc Ellis and Acid00:02:24
Yeah, it really was a baffling choice all around.
Yeah, for everyone.
All right.
Well, the episode's over.
Go be with Jesus.
Oh, yeah.
Or Zen.
You know the famous author Roald Dahl.
He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG.
But did you know he was a spy?
Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
All episodes are out now.
Was this before he wrote his stories?
It must have been.
What?
Okay, I don't think that's true.
I'm telling you, I was a spy.
Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
Now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, gorgeous.
It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditional Ila.
My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley.
Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate.