We Build The Wall was an organization that ostensibly existed to raise funds to help construct a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. ¹ Following a fraud scandal that implicated the group’s leadership, it appears to be defunct and its tax-exempt status was automatically revoked for failure to file required tax returns as of 2025. ²

Federal and New York State prosecutors alleged that We Build The Wall’s leadership used the organization for self-enrichment and had defrauded donors. In 2023, its co-founder, Brian Kolfage, was found guilty on federal charges of defrauding donors and sentenced to 51 months in prison. ³ Former Trump administration advisor and right-of-center media figure Steve Bannon, who had received a pardon from President Donald Trump against federal charges, ⁴ pled guilty to one New York State count of scheming to defraud in the first degree in exchange for a three-year conditional discharge sentence for his involvement in We Build The Wall. ⁵

Background

We Build The Wall started as a GoFundMe campaign organized by Brian Kolfage in December 2018. The campaign was intended to raise money to build a border wall that had been proposed by then-President  Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign. Kolfage established We Build The Wall Inc. as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization in 2019 in the hopes of raising $1 billion to construct segments of the wall on privately owned land along the U.S.-Mexico border. Kolfage gave GoFundMe donors the option of having their donations refunded or redirected to the newly established nonprofit organization. ⁶

We Build The Wall claimed that then-President Trump followed through on the majority of his campaign promises, but his main promise to “build the wall” still needed to be completed. We Build The Wall posited that if each of the 63 million people who had voted for President Trump in the 2016 presidential election donated $80 to its campaign, which would amount to $5 billion, then the wall could be built. ¹

Controversy

We Build The Wall claimed that all of the donations made to the organization would be used exclusively to fund its mission to build segments of a border wall and that no persons involved with the organization would receive financial compensation. ³

In 2020, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that the federal government had indicted Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, Timothy Shea, and former Trump administration advisor and right-of-center media figure Steve Bannon “for their roles in defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as “We Build the Wall” that raised more than $25 million.” ⁷ On the final day of his first administration, President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon against federal charges. ⁴

In 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York stated in a press release that Kolfage, Badolato, Shea, and others involved with We Build The Wall received donor funds totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, which were not used in a manner consistent with the organization’s mission. The press release further stated that Kolfage, Badolato, Shea, and others defrauded donors by obscuring and concealing payments using a scheme that routed payments through entities and bank accounts under their control. ³

Kolfage and Badolato both pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and Shea was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and obstruction of justice. ³

In early 2025, Bannon pled guilty to one New York State count of scheming to defraud in the first degree in exchange for a three-year conditional discharge sentence. ⁵

Funding

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, We Build The Wall’s crowdfunding campaign raised more than $25 million to build a border wall. ⁵ While most of these donations came from undisclosed private donors, tax filings confirm donations from the Leandro P. Rizzuto Foundation ⁸ and the W. E. Mikhail Foundation. ⁹

Advisory Board

Brian Kolfage was a co-founder of We Build The Wall and a triple-amputee U.S. Air Force veteran who received a Purple Heart. ¹⁰ In 2023, Kolfage was sentenced to 51 months in prison for offenses related to his management of We Build The Wall. Kolfage was found guilty of scheming to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors by using false statements to solicit donations, which he then stole through the We Build The Wall campaign. ³

Steve Bannon was the chair of the advisory board of We Build The Wall. Bannon formerly worked as the CEO of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, as chief strategist and senior counselor to then-President Trump, and as executive chair of Breitbart News. Bannon is the founder of Citizens of the American Republic. ¹¹

John Daniel Moran, Jr. is the chair of Penn Strategies, an economic advisor to local, state, and federal candidates and elected officials, and a former president and CEO of Moran Industries. Moran is a former member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Committee and a former co-chair of the Team PA Foundation. ¹²

Robert Spalding is the CEO of SEMPRE and a member of the faculty at the Institute of World Politics Graduate School. Spalding is a retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force who formerly worked in senior strategy and diplomacy positions at the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of State and is a former senior director for strategy to the president at the National Security Council. Spalding is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and a senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. ¹³

Erik Prince is a U.S. Navy SEAL veteran and the founder of and chair of the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group. Prince is the founder and former CEO of the government services and security company Blackwater USA. ¹⁴

Tom Tancredo is a former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Tancredo formerly worked as a regional representative for the U.S. Department of Education during both the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. ¹⁰

David Clarke, Jr. is a former Milwaukee County sheriff and a former law enforcement official with the Milwaukee Police Department. Clarke is also a former spokesperson and senior advisor for America First Action, a super PAC affiliated with the pro-Trump organization America First Policies. ¹⁵

Kris Kobach is a Republican politician and as of 2025 the Attorney General of Kansas. Kobach is a former Kansas Secretary of State and a former member of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential transition team. ¹⁶

Mary Ann Mendoza is a mother whose son was killed by an intoxicated driver who was in the U.S. illegally. Mendoza unsuccessfully ran as a Republican candidate for the Arizona House of Representatives in 2024. ¹⁷

Steve Ronnebeck is a father whose son was killed by an undocumented immigrant. Ronnebeck is the founder of the Ronnebeck Institute. ¹⁰

Sara A. Carter is the founder and executive director of the Dark Wire Investigation Foundation and a contributor to Fox News. ¹⁰

Dustin Stockton is the chair of EastCann, a vice president of global business development at America First Medical, and the founder of the Western Representation PAC. ¹⁸

Tiffiny Ruegner is a co-founder of We Build The Wall. Ruegner is a former co-owner of Right Wing News, a former executive of the Women Warriors PAC, a former vice president of the Campaign to Defeat Obama, and a former field director for Tea Party Express. ¹⁹

Other members included Jennifer Lynn Lawrence and Amanda Shea. ¹⁰

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2. IRS Exempt Organization Search for EIN 83-3040627.
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8. Leandro P. Rizzuto Foundation, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2019, Part XV, Line 3.
9. W. E. Mikhail Foundation, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2019, Part XV, Line 3.
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