Steve Bannon has been arrested. He and three associates were indicted in the U.S. Southern District of New York and charged with defrauding donors through a campaign called, We Build the Wall. The group raised “more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States” and it is suspected that hundreds of thousands of dollars were misappropriated.
Two years ago President Trump fired Bannon claiming the “he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was.” Mr. Trump added that Steve “pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue.”
Well, Mr. Bannon successfully fooled Mr. Viktor Orbán’s isolated government when he received a hero’s welcome in Budapest in May 2018. His main cheerleader was historian Ms. Mária Schmidt who organized an event to celebrate the American.
Steve Bannon (far left) with Viktor Orbán (far right) in the Hungarian Parliament.
Mr. Bannon sold himself as a chief architect of US policy, a confidant of President Trump and an expert on Central Europe. By the way, Bannon’s racist and anti-Semitic tendencies are well known. His conflict with Jared Kushner, the President’s advisor and brother in law was an open secret.
Mr. Bannon with his Hungarian cheerleader historian Ms. Mária Schmidt
Bannon announced that he planned to work closely with the Hungarian Prime Minister: “We will spend a lot of time in Hungary.” Bannon also claimed that Orbán’s visit to Washington had raised his “profile” and bragged that he met and advised the top aides of the Hungarian strongman several times. He declared that “The Obama administration and the State Department completely shut out Orbán. He’s an individual who Trump has tracked very closely.”
There is no proof that Trump paid any attention to Orbán, in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if President Trump doesn’t know exactly where Hungary is. Orbán’s advisors convinced him that he is an important player of world politics and Bannon cleverly played on his vanity.
Mr. Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, profusely praised Bannon and foreign minister Mr. Péter Szijjártó also met him. I was surprised to see that even Mr. György Szapáry, the respected Hungarian–Belgian economist who served as the Hungarian Ambassador to the US in the past, was fooled by him.
Bannon calls his arrest a political hit job. “I’m not going to back down. This is a political hit job,” and added “everybody knows I love a fight.”
Mr. Bannon with Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó
I have a feeling that he will not visit his Hungarian friends soon. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison each.
Watch Mr. Bannon’s Budapest speech here:
György Lázár
