Steve Bannon, a vocal right-wing figure in US politics and a former senior adviser to Donald Trump, arrived at jail on Monday to begin a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
He was convicted of defying a subpoena to testify before a congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
Bannon, 70, spoke in a challenging tone as he arrived at a federal prison in Connecticut.
“I’m proud to go to jail today if that’s what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden,” Bannon said.
Bannon and others argue that the legal proceedings arising from the Jan. 6 insurrection against the seat of American democracy amount to political persecution designed to thwart Trump’s re-election bid in November.
A group of people waving “Trump 2024” flags greeted Bannon outside the prison, as did Marjorie Taylor Greene, a pro-Trump lawmaker from Georgia who is one of the new faces of the Republican Party tightly controlled by the former president.
Bannon, one of the masterminds behind Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign, was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022 but remains free while he appeals his conviction.
A federal appeals court upheld the conviction in May, and District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, revoked Bannon’s bail at a court hearing earlier this month, ordering him to appear in jail by July 1.
Bannon no longer officially works for Trump, but on Monday he reiterated his support for him and promised to use all his influence to get him back into the White House, primarily through his podcast “The War Room,” which will continue to release episodes even without Bannon.
Before heading to jail, Bannon warned the crowd about Trump’s most imminent legal threat: On July 11, a judge in New York will announce his sentencing if Trump pleads guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a payment of money to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election.
“The most important thing to remember is that President Trump will be sentenced to prison on July 11th,” Bannon said.
Judge Juan Merchan could also have opted for another punishment, such as probation.
Earlier in his podcast, Bannon also welcomed the far-right’s strong showing in France’s first round of legislative elections and European Parliament votes in other countries.
“This is the momentum of our movement,” Bannon said.
– Forgiven –
Bannon served as the White House’s chief strategist for the first seven months of Trump’s term, and was reportedly forced to step down due to differences with other top staffers.
In 2020, he was charged with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly diverting for personal use millions of dollars given by donors for the construction of a border wall with Mexico.
While others were convicted in the scheme, Trump granted Bannon a full pardon before leaving office in January 2021, resulting in the dismissal of the charges against him.
On the day of the Capitol riot, when thousands of Trump supporters were occupying the congressional building to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory over Trump, Bannon spoke to the then-president by telephone.
As a result, congressional investigators wanted to question Bannon about his role in those incidents.
Bannon entered jail on the same day that the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court effectively delayed the possibility of suing Trump in federal court to try to overturn the 2020 election.
Bannon joins a growing list of former Trump associates who have completed or are currently serving prison sentences as a result of their ties to Trump.
The second case is that of former Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro, who was sentenced to four months in prison for defying a congressional subpoena to testify about January 6.
Others include Trump’s former legal adviser and now whistleblower Michael Cohen and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
Trump has been impeached four times, but the hush money case is the only one that has actually been prosecuted.
The other three cases — two related to his efforts to illegally hold on to power after the 2020 election and one related to his retention of classified documents after he left office — are not expected to be heard before the presidential election.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)