Ex-Trump chief strategist Bannon starts serving prison sentence

Steve Bannon, an outspoken right-wing figure in American politics and former senior advisor to Donald Trump, reported to prison Monday (1 July) to begin a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.

He was convicted of defying a subpoena to testify before the congressional panel that investigated the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

Bannon, 70, spoke defiantly as he showed up at a federal prison in Connecticut.

“I’m proud of going to prison today,” Bannon said, “if it’s what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden.”

Bannon and others argue that legal proceedings stemming from the 6 January insurrection against the seat of US democracy amount to political persecution designed to thwart Trump’s bid for reelection in November.

A cluster of people waving “Trump 2024” flags greeted Bannon outside the prison, as did Marjorie Taylor Greene, a fiercely pro-Trump lawmaker from Georgia who is one of the new faces of the Republican Party tightly controlled by the former president.

One of the masterminds behind Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign, Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022, but remained free until now while appealing 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 early this month, ordering him to report to prison by 1 July.

Bannon no longer works officially for Trump, but reiterated his support for him Monday and promised to use all his influence to get him back in the White House, mainly through his podcast “The War Room,” which will continue to release episodes, albeit without Bannon.

Before reporting for prison, Bannon warned the crowd of Trump’s most imminent legal threat: on 11 July, a judge in New York will announce a sentence in Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records related to hush money payments to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election.

“The most important thing to remember is President Trump is going to be sentenced to prison on July 11,” Bannon said.

Judge Juan Merchan could also opt for other punishment, such as probation.

Earlier on his podcast, Bannon also welcomed the strong showing of the far-right in France’s first round legislative election and in other countries in European parliament voting.

“This is the momentum of our movement,” Bannon said.

Pardoned

Bannon served in the White House as chief strategist for the first seven months of Trump’s term, leaving reportedly due to conflicts with other top staffers.

In 2020, he was charged with wire fraud and money laundering for taking for personal use millions of dollars contributed by donors for the construction of a border wall with Mexico.

While others were found guilty in the scheme, Trump issued a blanket pardon to Bannon before leaving office in January 2021, leading to the dismissal of the charges against him.

On the day of the Capitol riot, as thousands of pro-Trump supporters overran the congressional building to block the certification of Biden’s win over Trump, Bannon spoke by telephone with the then-president.

As a result, congressional investigators wanted to question Bannon about his role in those events.

Bannon entered prison the same day that the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court effectively delayed the possibility of Trump being tried in federal court for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Bannon joins the growing list of former Trump associates who have completed or are currently serving jail time as a result of their ties to Trump.

Another is a former Trump economic adviser, Peter Navarro, who was also sentenced to a four-month prison term for defying a congressional subpoena to testify about 6 January.

Others include former Trump legal fixer turned whistleblower Michael Cohen and the CFO of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg.

Trump has been indicted four times, but the hush money case is the only one that has actually gone to trial.

The other three cases — two related to his attempts to cling to power illegally after the 2020 election and one for retaining classified documents after he left office — are not expected to go to trial before the presidential election.

Read more with Euractiv