Steve Bannon will face state charges related to his role in an effort to build a border wall despite having been pardoned by former President Donald J. Trump.
The charges are the latest example of the Manhattan prosecutors’ efforts to serve as a check against the presidential pardon process in cases where prosecutors believed the recipient of a federal pardon had also broken state laws.
Mr. Bannon would be the first pardon recipient to be prosecuted since the passage of a 2019 New York law that explicitly allows such charges. That law passed after an attempt to prosecute another Trump ally, Paul J. Manafort, was challenged on double-jeopardy grounds.
The Double Jeopardy Clause, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, says that a person cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offense. But it didn't get to the trial stage. Bannon was never prosecuted in federal court. In August 2020, Bannon was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection to the We Build the Wall campaign. The defendant allegedly enriched themselves, despite promising that all contributions would go to building a wall. Bannon pleaded not guilty and was pardoned by Trump before his trial date.
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