Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon has been released from prison after serving four months in prison.
Bannon, 70, was released from a correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut on Tuesday, Benjamin O’Cone, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, told the BBC.
Bannon, a conservative podcast host who was a key figure in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022 for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to the investigation on January 6 at the Capitol.
“Four months in federal prison didn’t just break me, it made me stronger,” Bannon said on his podcast after his release.
“I’m stronger and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
In a press conference he held on Tuesday afternoon, Bannon said that with the 2024 presidential election a week away, he will focus more on getting voters to support Trump.
“We were on the verge of a dramatic victory that could have been a landslide,” Bannon said.
He also spoke briefly while he was incarcerated, saying that he was once given the opportunity to teach a civics and government class to other prisoners.
Before he was sent to prison, he had promised to continue to help Trump and his campaign in prison.
“I’ve been working for my country for 10 years or more focused on this,” he told the BBC before going to prison, referring to politics and Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. “If I have to do it in prison, I do it in prison – it makes no difference at all.”
Bannon has remained loyal to Trump and hostile to Democratic figures, despite disagreements between the two during Trump’s presidency.
“I am a political prisoner of Nancy Pelosi, I am a political prisoner of Merrick Garland; I am a political prisoner of Joe Biden and the corrupt Biden organization,” he said before going to jail.
A Trump loyalist said on his podcast in May that Democrats “will do everything to steal this election”.
He repeatedly lied that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Bannon is still facing other legal problems – as he has been charged with money laundering, racketeering and conspiracy in another New York state case in 2022.
He is accused of defrauding donors to a fundraising campaign that promised to build part of the US-Mexico border wall. Bannon has denied the charges.
Source link
