Italy shuts down Steve Bannon's "gladiator school for cultural warriors"
Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot.
What was once the potential site for a training academy for the far-right, the Italian state evicts the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) due to reports of fraud. According to a recent report from The Economist, institute director Benjamin Harnwell was shocked by the news, while the former aide to US President Trump stated the letter was "totally legitimate" and "dust kicked up by the left."
The plans for transforming a medieval monastery near Rome into the center for these "cultural warriors" of the far-right included the prospect that students "would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training from the former Trump aide himself."
Unhappy with the recent news of losing the monastery, DHI plans to fight the decision in court. “The DHI will contest this illegitimate maneuver with every resource at its disposal no matter how many years it takes. And we will win and in the meantime, we relish the opportunity to ...
