Steve Bannon reports to Connecticut prison for 4 month sentence

Lina Portman5 days ago

0 3 minutes read

Top line

Steve Bannon, a prominent conservative podcast host and ally of former President Donald Trump, reported to a Connecticut prison Monday to serve his four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress after refusing to cooperate with a subpoena from the House committee dated January 6.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon leaves news conference outside Connecticut … [+] prison where he will serve a four-month sentence.

AFP via Getty Images

Highlights

Bannon held a news conference outside the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury on Monday, where he spoke to supporters and members of the media and said he was “proud to go to prison.”

“If this is what it takes to stand up to tyranny… to stand up to Garland's criminally corrupt DOJ… to stand up to Nancy Pelosi… to stand up to Joe Biden, I'm proud to do it,” he said, NBC News reported.

Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $6,500 in October 2022 after being found in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over records and testify before the House committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on January 6.

He has tried to delay his sentence through legal appeals over the past two years – arguing that he was protected from the House subpoena by executive privilege and because his lawyer had advised him not to comply – but his latest appeal asking the Supreme Court to suspend his sentence was rejected on Friday.

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Surprising fact

Bannon held a news conference outside the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, and was joined by far-right House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and a small group of supporters, the Associated Press reported.

Bannon and US Greene speak at a press conference Monday before Bannon reports to prison for … [+] serve his sentence for contempt of Congress.

AFP via Getty Images

A group of supporters gathered in Connecticut to support Bannon, before he traveled to serve his … [+] Bannon told the crowd he was “proud” to go to prison if that's “what it takes to resist tyranny.”

Getty Images

Key context

Bannon served as Trump’s first White House chief strategist after his election in 2016 — though he held the position for less than eight months — and before that, he was president of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart News. He has hosted his podcast “War Room” since 2019, on which he discusses far-right topics, including false information about how the 2020 election was stolen and other political conspiracy theories. Bannon’s podcast has consistently been ranked among the top podcasts, and in 2023, a Brookings Institution study found that the show “shared the most unfounded or false claims” of nearly 80 leading political podcasts. In 2020, he was a vocal supporter of Trump’s claims that the election was rigged and stolen, a theory that ultimately sparked the January 6 riots in Washington, D.C. The House subcommittee investigating the riot subpoenaed Bannon early on because Bannon was believed to be a close confidant of Trump; they had phone conversations on January 5, and Bannon encouraged people to travel to Washington on the day of the riot.

Tangent

Even though he will be in prison, Bannon's podcast, a crucial news source for many Trump supporters, will not stop. It will be hosted by a rotating team of nearly 20 guests, including Bannon's daughter, Rudy Giuliani's son and Osama bin Laden's niece, according to the New York Times, who will continue to broadcast far-right news to his listeners. Bannon told the Times that he expected his absence would not be a huge loss for the show, but rather that the podcast “will only get bigger and more powerful” while he is in prison .