Steve Bannon, the longtime Donald Trump acolyte, was released from prison on Tuesday, following a four-month sentence for defying a congressional subpoena in an investigation of the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack.
The far-right firebrand’s release from federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, comes just one week before election day. Bannon, 70, surrendered to prison on 1 July after the US supreme court rebuffed his effort to postpone this sentence pending appeal.
“I’m not broken, I’m empowered,” Bannon said upon leaving the lockup at about 3.15am local time, according to the New York Times. Bannon wasted little time in resuming his position as a pro-Trump demagogue, implying that political unrest would unfold after the election.
“If people think American politics has been divisive before, you haven’t seen anything,” Bannon said, according to reports.
He also insisted that serving time behind bars was “1,000%” worth the price of refusing congressional testimony. “If you’re not prepared to go to prison to fight for your country,” Bannon said, “you’re not prepared to fight for your country.”
Bannon was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress in July 2022. Federal prosecutors argued that Bannon thought himself “above the law” in refusing to sit before the January 6 House select committee and rejecting demands for documents in his work to subvert 2020’s election results – which saw Joe Biden besting Trump.
The prosecution said that Bannon “chose to show his contempt for Congress’s authority and its processes” in flouting these subpoenas. Bannon has insisted that the convictions against him were politically motivated, similar to Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that law enforcement actions against him stemmed from a nefarious Democratic conspiracy.
David Schoen, Bannon’s lawyer, claimed that this case prompted “serious constitutional issues” that needed to be examined by the supreme court.
“Quite frankly, Mr Bannon should make no apology. No American should make any apology for the manner in which Mr Bannon proceeded in this case,” Schoen said.
Bannon’s legal team has also argued that there was a “strong public interest” in permitting him to remain out on bail in advance of the 2024 US presidential elections.
Hours after his release, Bannon returned to his political proselytizing, with a live War Room podcast where he peddled election conspiracy theories.
At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, about 12 hours after his release from prison, Bannon railed against Nancy Pelosi, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Harris, again claiming that he was a “political prisoner”.
“The system is broken,” Bannon said, claiming the justice department was “weaponized” to punish Trump’s backers and gut his popular podcast.
Bannon also insisted that he met a lot of “working-class minorities” behind bars, saying he listened to, and learned from, them. They disliked Harris, Bannon said, calling the former prosecutor as the “queen of mass incarcerations”.
Doubling down on his War Room claims on Tuesday morning, in which Bannon insisted that prison had empowered him, he also quipped: “Nancy Pelosi, suck on that.”
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Bannon also thanked the prison for providing an opportunity for him to teach civics to about 100 students, pointing out that he had Puerto Rican and Dominican pupils. Bannon discussed his work with persons of color at several points, in a seeming effort to downplay attention on anti-Latino commentary from Trump supporters.
He also toyed with the idea that Democrats would try to steal the election from Trump; Biden won the 2020 election and there is no credible evidence of misconduct that undermines the legitimacy of his win.
“We’re going to have a reprise of 2020 where they’re going to do everything humanly possible to nullify” Trump’s victory and “delegitimize his second term”, Bannon claimed.
“The working-class people in this country that support Donald John Trump are not going to let that happen.
“The 2020 election was stolen,” Bannon also said later.
During a question-and-answer session with Bannon, an apparent interloper – it appears that he is a comedian – asked “when’s the next insurrection, and can we storm the Burger King after this?” This person seemed to have been escorted out of the press conference.
Bannon still faces state-level charges in New York over his alleged tricking of donors who contributed to building a US-Mexico border wall. Bannon maintains his innocence; trial in this case is scheduled for December.
With reporting from the Associated Press
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
