Another day, another Donald Trump associate arrested. The Confederacy of Felonious Trumpsters keeps growing with such dubious luminaries as Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Cohen. And now we can add Trump’s senior White House advisor, Steve Bannon. Not bad for an impeached president who routinely demonstrates his contempt for the law.

Steve Bannon served Trump both in his campaign and on his White House staff. Prior to that he eagerly fluffed Trump as the executive chairman of the ultra-rightist Breitbart News. Bannon was taken into custody Thursday morning after being arrested on multiple charges of fraud. As reported by CNN…

“New York federal prosecutors on Thursday charged Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon and three others with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump’s border wall.”

The private effort to build a border wall along the southern border of the United States was never a particularly good idea. It had no legal basis and it’s principals were shifty characters with prior records of legal misconduct, including being banned from Facebook.

When asked about Bannon’s arrest, Trump immediately deployed his standard (and nearly incoherent) defense when tied to scandal: Deny, deny, deny. By Trump’s account he has never met any of the people, with whom he clearly had close relationships, after they were brought to justice. In a statement Thursday morning (video below), Trump said that…

“I feel very badly [for Bannon]. I haven’t been dealing with him for a long period of time as most of the people in this room know. He was involved in our campaign…and for a small part of the administration, very early on. Haven’t been dealing with him at all. I know nothing about the project other than I didn’t like when I read about it, I didn’t like it…It sounded to me like showboating. And I think I let my opinion be very strongly stated at the time. I didn’t like it. It was showboating and maybe looking for funds, but you’ll have to see what happens. I think it’s a very sad thing for Mr. Bannon. I think it’s surprising…I didn’t know any of the other people even. But it’s, it’s sad it’s very sad.”

Poor Steve. But Trump wishes him well, just like he did for his good friend, pedophile sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump’s rambling and manically repetitive statement was a vain attempt to distance himself from Bannon and the bogus border wall project. However, despite his claim, there is no record of Trump ever expressing his opposition to the project, nor referring to it as “showboating.”

On the other hand, there is a video record of Donald Trump, Jr effusively praising the project and its founder, sycophantic Trump disciple Brian Kolfage. Trump spawn Little Don raved that the scam was “what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is pretty amazing.”

Donald Trump Jr. praised We Build The Wall and Brian Kolfage at a 2018 event: "This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is amazing.” pic.twitter.com/hOL25JoZPI — andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) August 20, 2020

It never fails. Every time a Trump flunky gets caught, Trump runs for cover. It’s emblematic of the cowardice that is an all too obvious component of his character (or lack thereof). But the evidence quickly emerges that proves his guilt. Most of the time, Trump will try to deflect by squeezing in an entirely irrelevant swipe at Barack Obama. However, with so many people getting indicted, convicted, and sometimes pardoned (which is a de facto confession of guilt) by Trump, no sane person can still say these are coincidences. But then, “sanity” has never been a word used in connection to Trump or the cult that worships him.

REPORTER: Sir, it's not just Steve Bannon. It's Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort. What's that say about your judgement and the culture of lawlessness around you? TRUMP: Well, there was great lawlessness in the Obama administration. pic.twitter.com/sjRExKljrz — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2020