Steve Bannon feels 'empowered' after four months in federal prison

Steve Bannon, the right-wing podcaster and one-time political adviser to former President Donald Trump, was released from federal prison Tuesday morning after serving four months behind bars for contempt of Congress.

Bannon was convicted in 2022 on two counts for defying subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. He left prison a week before Election Day, as Trump and Vice President Harris deliver their respective closing messages in a tight race for the White House.

Just hours after his release, Bannon returned to host a new episode of his daily podcast, “War Room.” Dressed in a black shirt and with his gray hair slicked back, Bannon falsely claimed that former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent him to federal prison as a political prisoner “to tamp down the power of this show and to break me.”

“Four months in federal prison didn’t break me. It empowered me,” Bannon told his online audience. “I’m more energized and more focused than I’ve been in my entire life.”

Bannon echoed the false argument of other Republicans, including Trump, who accuse Democrats of weaponizing the Justice Department and the legal system against members of the party.

Bannon served his four-month sentence at the federal lockup in Danbury, Conn. Another former Trump aide, Peter Navarro, also served four months in prison after being convicted of the same charges.

A variety of people filled in on the “War Room” podcast while Bannon was in prison. He marked his return to the podcast with a fiery message for Trump’s supporters ahead of Election Day, telling them: “This is a fight not simply for the direction of this country but what this country stands for.”

Democrats, Bannon claimed, “have no intention of giving up power.”

Trump’s supporters in Congress also have lobbed accusations of politicization against the Justice Department, pointing to the two federal indictments brought against the former president for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and for hoarding classified documents.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has rejected the allegations. In recent years, the department has twice indicted President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for gun and tax crimes; charged two Democratic members of Congress with corruption; indicted the Democratic mayor of New York City on corruption charges; and investigated the president himself over his handling of classified documents after his vice presidency.

At a news conference later in the day, Bannon said his immediate focus is getting Trump supporters to the polls before and on Nov. 5, and on ensuring “election integrity.”

“My focus is on victory next Tuesday and the biggest number possible, because folks: don’t think it’s going to end on Tuesday,” he said. “This is going to take a while to sort through.”

That said, Bannon accused the Harris campaign of preparing for a possibly contentious legal fight after Election Day. He left out that the Trump campaign is making similar preparations.