July 26, 2023 10:03 AM UTC

Colorado "We Build The Wall" Fraudster Gets Five Years

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times’ Colin Moynihan reports, Castle Rock entrepreneur and Republican activist Timothy Shea was sentenced in a New York federal court yesterday to just over five years in prison for his role in the “We Build The Wall” scam, launched in 2018 with a who’s-who of anti-immigrant hardliners singing the praises of what turned out to be a massive fraud–including Colorado’s former presidential candidate and leading immigrant hater Tom Tancredo:

Mr. Shea was convicted last fall of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and falsifying records. In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors wrote to the court that he had “viewed this fund-raising project as a cash cow.”

…We Build the Wall’s stated aim was to advance Mr. Trump’s goal of a “big, beautiful” barrier along the southern border. Its advisory board included Trump allies like Kris Kobach, who is a former Kansas secretary of state, and Erik Prince, the founder of the private military company Blackwater, now known as Academi. Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., praised the group.

Prosecutors said money from We Build the Wall was funneled into companies controlled by Mr. Bannon and Mr. Shea, with each keeping some money and sending some to Mr. Kolfage.

Former senior counselor to President Donald Trump Steve Bannon, seen in the photo above with Tancredo pushing the “We Build The Wall” scam, was pardoned by Trump at the very end of Trump’s term specifically to avoid prosecution for this multimillion-dollar fraud. Of the co-conspirators part of the federal indictment, Shea’s case is reportedly the only one that went to trial with the other two cases ending in guilty pleas. As for Bannon, he’s still not out of the woods after the state of New York opted to prosecute a case that Trump can’t pardon even if he (trigger warning) returns to the White House.

Obviously, now that all of Bannon’s indicted co-conspirators are headed to several years in Club Fed for their roles in this scam, Bannon’s pardon stands out as a particularly galling miscarriage of justice committed by Trump. But there are also a substantial number of Republican politicians, like Tancredo who served on the “advisory board” of the organization and Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach who should still answer for their role in scamming thousands of donors out of millions of dollars. Kobach, who was general counsel for the group all the way up until last September, has like Tancredo denied personally teeting up to the WBTW revenue stream. But if it wasn’t for supposedly credible officials like them touting the effort, how would it have raised over $20 million?

In even the most charitable interpretation, Kobach and Tancredo were useful idiots abetting a multimillion-dollar crime. That used to be the end of just about anyone’s political relevance. At the very least, somewhere within their denials there ought to be some, you know, regrets.