<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Steve Bannon &#8211; the former chairman of <i>Breitbart News</i> who served briefly as President Trump&#8217;s chief strategist &#8211; was arrested Thursday morning and charged with fraud. He has since pleaded not guilty.<br />
</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">He was found off the coast of Connecticut on a mega-yacht owned by exiled Chinese dissident Guo Wengui.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Bannon and three others have been accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors who thought they were contributing to a fundraising effort for Trump’s Border Wall. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Bannon pleaded not guilty to the charges and claimed the “entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall.” </span><span class="s1">Witnesses described Bannon&#8217;s appearance in court as &#8216;sunburned&#8217; and &#8216;disheveled&#8217; and said he was rocking back and forth in his chair. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Bannon was released Thursday under the following conditions: </span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="s1">Pretrial supervision</span></li>
<li><span class="s1">Travel restrictions that prevent him from leaving the New York/Washington, DC area and from utilizing private airplanes or yachts</span></li>
<li>A $5 million bail bond due by September 3rd</li>
</ul>
<p class="p1"><em><span class="s1">Steve Bannon was an early Trump supporter who played a key role in his 2016 campaign. He was ousted by the president in August 2017 after describing as “treasonous” a meeting between Trump aides and a Russian lawyer. </span></em><span class="s1"><em>Bannon’s arrest was made possible through a joint operation involving DOJ agents, the US Coast Guard, a local response boat, and a MH-60J helicopter. Bannon&#8217;s friends said he was “at sea” for the past several weeks.</em></span></p>