NEW YORK: Former top Trump strategist Steve Bannon was arrested and charged Thursday along with three others for defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in a Mexico border wall fundraising campaign - a blow to the Republican incumbent. The online crowdfunding campaign known as "We Build the Wall" raised more than $25 million, prosecutors said, which the defendants promised would be used on construction but which they instead funneled to their own pockets.

The arrest is the latest in a string of high-profile criminal probes into Trump's inner circle, and comes just months before November's vote the Republican hopes will win him re-election. Shortly after the charges were announced the president aimed to distance himself, saying: "Don't know anything about the project at all."