Donald Trump's former advisor faces embezzlement charges

New York: Media reports suggested that Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon will appear before the court on Thursday on a case of fraud. He was accused of mismanagement of funds during the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico, Agence France-Presse reported.

The 68-year-old ideologue who was in the inner circle to raise former US President Trump to the post.

CNBC television reported that Bannon will surrender before the office of Manhattan's prosecutor and will face the charges against him, as per his lawyer Robert Costello.

The details of the charges on Bannon have not been made public since the indictment has been sealed, but mainstream media, including the Washington Post, CNBC and CNN, reported that the charges were related to the financial fraud case that indicted Bannon in 2020.

In August 2020, the former White House advisor was arrested and was accused of fraud and embezzling a part of $25 million of donor funds allotted for building a wall between the US and Mexico. Three other people were accused in the case, along with Bannon.

The wall was a key promise Trump made in his run for President in 2016. In this case, Trump pardoned Bannon a day before he left President's office in January 2021.

Bannon had denounced the lawsuits against him during the November 8 midterm legislative elections. He said, "an armed partisan politicization of the criminal justice system," AFP quoted.

However, the new criminal indictment comes six weeks after the ex-advisor was convicted in a federal court in Washington on charges of obstructing investigative powers of Congress. Bannon had refused to cooperate with the House committee's investigation on January 6, 2021, storming Capitol Hill.

Though Bannon left the White House in August 2017, he remained close to Trump and had contacted him before the Capitol assault incident.