29.03.2024

Whos who in the web of White House criminality

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Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested, becoming the second leader from the president’s 2016 election campaign to face criminal charges.

However, Mr Bannon is only one in a line of associates to the president to run afoul of the law since Mr Trump took office.

Following the controversy, Republican anti-trump Political Action Committee (PAC) The Lincoln Project released a scathing tweet pointing out just how many associates of Mr Trump have been convicted or arrested, many in connection with the Mueller investigation and election interference, which quickly went viral online.

But who are the men affiliated with the president? And what did they do to land themselves in dispute with the US justice system?

Rick Gates

Gates, a former Trump campaign deputy chairman and inaugural official pleaded guilty in February 2018 on charges of conspiracy and lying to federal prosecutors.and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

His term was set to be served intermittently during three years of probation after winning leniency for his “extraordinary” cooperation with federal prosecutors against other Trump associates.

Paul Manafort

Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager, was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail in 2018 on charges of tax failing to report foreign bank accounts, witness tampering, and engaging in unregistered lobbying for foreign interests.

Manafort was due to be released from prison in November 2024, but was released to serve the remainder of his seven and a half year sentence at home due to fears over the coronavirus pandemic in May.

George Papadopoulos

Papadopoulos, who was an adviser to Mr Trump’s presidential campaign in the first major political role of his career, pleaded guilty to lying about FBI agents about conversations with Russia-linked intermediaries during the 2016 presidential campaign.

He was sentenced to two weeks in prison and 200 hours of community service to be completed within a year alongside a fine of $9,500 (£7,400).

Papadopoulos sought to delay his two-week sentence, but US District Court Judge Randy Moss said he had failed to justify a delay and was ordered to go to jail in November 2018.

Michael Flynn

The former National Security Adviser and highest-ranking official implicated during the Mueller inquiry is arguably the most recognisable faces surrounding the investigation.

Flynn has been accused of, and previously pleaded guilty to, lying to the FBI about his communications with former Russian Ambassador to the US.

The retired Army three-star general’s legal counsel has for months been involved in a complicated legal battle. Attorney General William Barr ordered a review of the case in January before dropping the charges, saying the criminal case lacked “any legitimate investigative basis.”

In June, a US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Flynn was free to go and the Department of Justice could drop its case against him Last month, however, a federal appeals court said it will review a judge’s attempt to examine the decision to drop its criminal case.

Michael Cohen

Mr Trump’s former personal attorney was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after admitting to arranging payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr Trump.

He was released from jail in May this year to serve the rest of his sentence at home amidst fears over coronavirus but was briefly sent back to jail after it was revealed that he was working on a book about the president.

The attorney has since frequently repeated claims that Mr Trump cheated in the 2016 presidential election and “colluded” with Russia.

Roger Stone

Stone, a longtime ally and former adviser of the president, was convicted last November on seven counts alleging that he lied to lawmakers about communicating with Wikileaks, tampered with witnesses and obstructed a House intelligence committee investigation into the president’s 2016 campaign.

Mr Trump granted clemency to the political consultant in July, just days before he was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia for an over three-year prison sentence.

On Tuesday, Stone announced he was dropping a challenge of his criminal conviction.

Steve Bannon

Former Donald Trump adviser Mr Bannon was arrested and indicted on Thursday, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering while raising money for a campaign to build the US-Mexico border wall.

Mr Bannon and two others were indicted for allegedly funnelling “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from the “We Build the Wall” online fundraising campaign, which raised $25m from hundreds of thousands of donors.

Donald Trump

Mr Trump was impeached in 2019 by the House of Representatives on charges of obstruction of congress and abuse of power surrounding his dealings with Ukraine.

The Republican-led Senate later acquitted the president, as was widely predicted, but the process was a humiliating public challenge against the president, becoming only the third president in American history to be impeached by Congress.

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