A former Tory parliamentary assistant and close associate of former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon has overcome substantial legal challenges in Italy and might now be able to finally reopen the doors of a right-wing training academy in a mountainous 13th-century monastery southeast of Rome.
Benjamin Harnwell, a former Conservative chief of staff in the EU Parliament and director of the Catholic Dignitatis Humanae Institute, who is also a contributing editor to The European Conservative, was completely exonerated of all charges of fraudulent participation in a public tender by Rome’s Central Criminal Court last week, arising from his role in winning the 19-year lease for the former Carthusian abbey in 2017.
Aiming to create a hatching ground for future economic-nationalist politicians, and financially sponsored by Bannon himself and ideologically sympathetic donors, Harnwell had been embroiled in a four-year-long legal dispute over the historic monastery. According to Bannon, they spent millions fighting the charges.
The Italian Ministry of Culture evicted Harnwell in July 2021, claiming—without any evidence—that the lease had been fraudulently obtained. Harnwell expressed his bafflement at how Italy’s socialist then-minister for culture, Dario Franceschini, was able to evict him without ever suing him first.
Harnwell had always forcefully maintained his innocence, and now an Italian judge has apparently totally vindicated the influential, if somewhat controversial, commentator who boasts over 150,000 followers on the MAGA-centric social media platform GETTR.
In comments to The European Conservative, Harnwell expressed his frustration with “the total lack of due process I experienced Italy,” underlining that “to this day I have never been convicted of any wrongdoing—I’ve never even been given so much as a parking ticket in Italy” before adding, “How can a government get away with such lawless behaviour as an EU member state?”
Harnwell then addressed those who evicted him “Despite your most sinister underhand efforts, we won—you lost. Steve Bannon’s ‘Academy for the Judeo-Christian West’ lives to fight another day. So suck on that, Italian communists! MAGA triumphans.”
In the works since 2018 and large enough to cater to 250-300 students, the so-called ‘gladiator school for culture warriors’ at Trisulti was backed by Bannon as well as Italian Christian Democrat politician, and Pope John Paul II confidant, Rocco Buttiglione and was speculated to become an institutional rallying point for both conservatives and Traditional Catholics against the Francis Papacy.
The monastery is rumoured to absorb within its operations Bannon’s already pre-existing ‘The Movement’ designed to promote nationalist and sovereigntist projects in Europe, with the former Breitbart executive chairman coming to renewed prominence in conservative circles ahead of a potential second Trump administration.
