A corruption investigation has been opened into an Italian politician close to Steve Bannon.



According to prosecutors in Rome, Armando Siri, a senator for the far-right Lega party and a junior government minister, was in discussions to accept more than 30,000 euros ($33,700) in bribes from a businessman to promote policies benefiting the family’s business empire, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Siri was the first politician from Lega, led by Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, to meet with Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, when Bannon first began courting links to Lega last year.

Lega then became the most significant party in Western Europe to endorse Bannon's initiative to boost European nationalists when it was announced a few months later.

Investigators do not allege the bribes have a connection to any projects directly involving Bannon, but they appear to be exactly the kind of "crony capitalism" that Bannon claims to be crusading against. And the charges touch the closest members of Bannon’s circle inside the Lega party.

According to prosecutors, Siri was caught on a wire tap discussing the bribes with a businessman named Paolo Arata. The corruption probe is based in Sicily, but leaked this week when prosecutors in Rome issued search warrants.

Quoted by ANSA, Siri denied being involved in criminal affairs. “I don’t know what it’s about,” he said. “I must first read and understand. I have read names I don’t know.” Salvini has rejected calls for Siri to quit while he is under investigation, saying he has full confidence in Siri.

Bannon did not immediately respond to a message from BuzzFeed News.

Siri created one of the many far-right political training institutes that Bannon is supporting throughout Europe. Bannon credited Siri's school as a model for the political training course he is now developing at former monastery outside Rome during a December 2018 interview with Corriere Della Sera.

Siri’s political education school is designed to cultivate young leaders in the Lega party, but the Italian broadcaster RAI reported it also provides tax advice as well as rents space to hypnotists and healers who use crystals.



During a previously unreported interview with BuzzFeed News last October, Siri called for the current democracy in Italy to be replaced with an "aristocracy.”

"This type of democracy is not working," Siri said. "Do not confuse democracy with freedom. They are two separate things. There can be a democracy without freedom and there can be another system where there is a lot of freedom."

"It would be an even larger freedom" without democracy, Siri said, "Because the biggest freedom is to be able to realize one's life — people does not want to choose their leaders, they want to live their lives.”

