The far-right agitator has served several months for contempt charges relating to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon has been released from prison after serving a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.
Bannon left the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut early on Tuesday morning with plans to hold a news conference in Manhattan later in the day.
Bannon also returned to his podcast and online show Tuesday morning, saying he was focused on helping Trump win the presidential election.
He bashed Democrats and their agenda, asserting that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent him to prison to silence him — despite a jury having convicted him and a judge having sentenced him.
“The four months in federal prison not only didn’t break me, it empowered me,” Bannon declared. “I am more energised and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
The 70-year-old former Trump adviser, who served on Trump’s first presidential campaign and briefly in his White House, reported to prison on 1 July after the Supreme Court rejected his bid to delay his sentence pending appeal.
Bannon was found guilty in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress: the first for refusing to sit for a deposition with the House of Representatives Select Committee charged with investigating the Capitol attack, and a second for refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The net closes in
When he began his sentence in July, Bannon called himself a “political prisoner”, saying he was “proud” to be sentenced to jail and presenting himself as the victim of a “corrupt” Justice Department.
A federal appeals court panel upheld Bannon’s convictions in May, but Bannon is now asking the full appeals court to hear his case. His lawyers previously argued that the congressional subpoena was invalid because Trump had asserted executive privilege to prevent evidence being submitted in the case.
Prosecutors retorted that Bannon had left the White House years before, and that Trump had never invoked executive privilege in front of the Capitol attack select committee.
Since the end of his presidency, Trump has repeatedly attempted to invoke executive privilege to prevent members of his administration from being compelled to testify in court. However, his efforts have failed because he is no longer the sitting president, and Joe Biden has declined to uphold Trump’s demand to exert privilege over witnesses and documents.
Aside from the cases relating to the 2020 election, Bannon faces additional criminal charges in New York state court. It is alleged that he participated in a plan to dupe donors who gave money to a campaign group ostensibly fundraising to privately build a section of wall along the US-Mexico border.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges. The trial is scheduled to begin in December.
