Correction: This column has been changed to correctly identify who "Foreman Mike" works for.Â
For months I’ve been receiving alarming emails from Brian Kolfage and , a group raising money to build border barriers on private land along the U.S.-Mexico line.
On May 29, he wrote: “You think you’ve heard the last of the migrant caravans that tried to invade America? Think again. There’s a Surge coming like we’ve never seen before, and it will ride on the back of the reopening of North America after the Chinese coronavirus lockdowns.â€
“That’s why We Build The Wall is raising $500,000 over the next 30 days to Stop the Surge, and we need your support today.â€
That surge didn’t come, but the emails did, week after week, month after month — always with the same message: Something terrible will happen at the border if you don’t donate now!
People are also reading…
People have responded enthusiastically, donating more than $25 million to the effort, according to .
What was really going on with the constant border-wall fundraising efforts? It should come as no surprise that, if the indictment proves correct, private profiteering was part of the motive for the project led by Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Trump, and Kolfage.
It has been apparent that might be the case since those two and others, including anti-immigration attorney Kris Kobach, launched their fundraising campaign at the Quail Creek Country Club in Sahuarita on Feb. 8, 2019. They would target fearful, older conservatives with alarming border rhetoric and rake in donations.
It’s a proven marketing strategy that Bannon and Trump used to help Trump win the White House. Now, the indictment says, Bannon and Kolfage would use it to make themselves a little money while also building a little wall: About 4 1/2 miles so far.
The problem: They promised in numerous fundraising appeals that 100% of donated money would go to the border-wall projects, not to them. Bannon told my colleague Curt Prendergast the same thing that night at Quail Creek: 100% to the project. But as Prendergast pointed out in Friday’s paper, it was just three days after the Quail Creek event that Bannon arranged a secret, $100,000 payment of donated money to Kolfage, according to the indictment.
Three days later!
Kolfage requested the $100,000 up front, then a salary of $20,000 per month, the indictment says. That adds up to a healthy $240,000 per year. More than $1 million of the donations were diverted through , prosecutors allege.
Kolfage, Bannon, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Unsurprisingly, Bannon argued after his release Friday that the prosecution was a politically motivated “hit job.â€
Online alarmism makes money
Yet the concern that this crew might profit off the fears of fellow conservatives was widespread even at the time the project started. They’d done it before — and it’s a pattern especially on the political right.
The National Rifle Association is accused of similar misbehavior in a New York lawsuit seeking to dissolve the group. For decades, the NRA has hyped fear that people would have their guns seized, and .
Kolfage is an appealing character because he is an Air Force veteran who lost three limbs in a 2004 rocket attack in Iraq. That garnered him sympathy and credibility here in the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ area, where he graduated from the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ with a degree in architecture.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was in her last days as a member of Congress in January 2012 when speech. Ernesto Portillo Jr. profiled Kolfage in the Star in February 2013.
But after graduating from the UA in 2014, Kolfage migrated to the online world, in January 2019.
“Starting in 2016, he hired about a half dozen people to post and spread content across at least 10 accounts, pushing them to sensationalize and fabricate content to gain more followers and reap thousands in advertising dollars,†Buzzfeed reported.
Kolfage operated Freedom Daily and Right Wing ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ among other sites, and the revenue skyrocketed, former employees told Buzzfeed. He saw how well alarmism sells.
Populism from a yacht
Kobach, a key force behind ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s SB 1070, ran a different sort of money-making operation using a similar political platform: immigration alarmism.
in 2018. When the ACLU would challenge the ordinances, the municipalities would hire Kobach to defend them.
Farmers Branch, Texas, spent seven years defending its Kobach-inspired ordinance and paid $7 million in legal expenses, $190,000 of it to Kobach, ProPublica reported. The town’s ordinance never even went into effect, and its then-mayor described Kobach’s pitch as “a sham.â€
Bannon’s game has long been to talk like an American populist while living like a member of the global elite. , anchored off the coast of Connecticut — a yacht owned by an exiled Chinese billionaire.
In fact, the day before he was arrested, Bannon did a YouTube broadcast from the yacht in which he talked with Kolfage about fundraising for the wall project. He also resorted to that bottom-scraping behavior of all right-wing talkers: and other precious metals, on behalf of a sponsor.
Seeing a pattern? It’s making big money from regular people by selling fear. You should recognize it, because a similar sham, or scam, has been played on all of us by Trump’s administration.
America’s border scam
The big border wall — the one Trump took about $10 billion from the Defense Department to build — is a publicly funded political project that also benefits Trump’s cronies. It’s the taxpayers’ version of the border barriers paid for by We Build The Wall’s donors.
Like Bannon and Kolfage, Trump sold it with a heavy dose of fear-mongering. He argued, among other reasons, that — a dubious claim about a gang that was born in the USA and already had deep roots in various parts of the country.
While the benefits that accrued to Trump have apparently been political, not financial, money has flowed to his supporters. In fact, the tissue that connects the Trump border wall with We Build The Wall is a contractor called Fisher Sand & Gravel.
The North Dakota-based company has ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ operations in Tempe and a president, Tommy Fisher, who has courted Trump through TV appearances. Fisher Sand & Gravel built the 1-mile and 3.5-mile sections of wall that donors to Kolfage and Bannon’s group paid for.
and lo and behold, the company has been awarded about $2 billion worth, most of it in Southern ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ between Nogales and Sasabe, and .
Alarmist rhetoric raises the money, and the money motive drives more rhetoric. One of the characters delivering the tough border talk is a man called Foreman Mike, who describes himself as an "intermediary" between We Build the Wall and the contractors. Foreman Mike, a gruff character who plays a working-class truth-teller on fundraising videos, also sends out emails, supporting Kolfage’s efforts.
“Dear Fellow Patriot,†began an Aug. 12 pitch I received. “I have another update from the Southern Border. I just came face to face with 10 illegal aliens as they tried to sneak around our Border Wall.â€
Then he got down to business:
“We’re ready to get building on Job Sites 3 & 4, but we NEED your support right away. We need to raise $200,000 before August 15th — just THREE DAYS from now — so we can break ground on MILES of new Border Wall.â€
Always the alarm, always the urgent need to hand over your money now.
To contact opinion columnist Tim Steller: tsteller@tucson.com or 807-7789. On Twitter: @senyorreporter