Former Trump ally Steve Bannon has pleaded guilty to fraud after donors who thought they were contributing to building a wall on the US border were duped.
The 71-year-old will avoid jail after getting a three-year conditional discharge as part of a plea deal.
Bannon had been accused of falsely promising donors that all money given to the We Build the Wall campaign would go towards a wall on the US-Mexico border.
Instead, prosecutors said it was used to enrich him and others involved in the project.
Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, pleaded guilty to one scheme to defraud count on Tuesday, but as he left court said he felt like “a million bucks”
He had called the prosecution, which was due to go to trial next month, a “political persecution” and now wants the US attorney general to investigate.
In November, a judge said prosecutors could show the jury an email they said showed Bannon was concerned the fundraising was “a scam”.
But last month Bannon’s lawyers asked the judge to throw out the case, dismissing it as an “unconstitutional selective enforcement of the law”.
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