Bannon Resumes Conservative Rhetoric Hours After Release From Prison

WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon resumed his “War Room” conservative podcast Tuesday hours after being released from prison.

He was convicted two years ago of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Bannon, 70, who served as a chief executive for former President Donald Trump’s successful campaign for president in 2016, has remained one of the former president’s staunchest supporters. He served as a strategist for eight months during the Trump administration.

Election Day next week was a primary focus of his first podcast after completing his four-month sentence in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

He told his roughly 60,000 listeners that “everything we’ve fought for for years is coming to fruition.”

He urged his supporters to make certain Democrats “cannot steal the election” in an apparent revival of debunked claims that Trump lost the 2020 presidential race through voter fraud.

He started the podcast playing clips of political commentators Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough harshly criticizing Trump.

“Understand something, and this has to be very clear, the Democrats and the radicals you just saw on MSNBC and CNN … they have no intention of giving up power. And this is why it’s so important for this audience, you are the background of this movement.”

He mentioned Trump’s controversial political rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday in which some of the speakers made statements with racist and sexist overtones, including one who referred to Puerto Rico as “garbage.”

Bannon said the rhetoric was “fantastic” and “amazing.”

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris is seizing on the speakers’ comments to say in a newly released television commercial that the implications of hate during the rally are typical of what Trump has in mind if he is reelected.

Bannon was the second former White House aide to serve a prison sentence after refusing to answer questions from a congressional panel on whether Trump planned to incite the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Lawmakers also wanted to question him about whether Trump was trying to seize control of the government.

Peter Navarro, a former trade advisor, was the first Trump appointee to serve jail time. Three others were censured by Congress.

Bannon claimed that he was immune from prosecution under the executive privilege that protects the president and his staff from liability for their official actions.

Prosecutors argued Bannon could not claim executive privilege because he already left the White House when he was subpoenaed by Congress.

After a judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced him, Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse, “There’s not a prison built or a jail built that’ll ever shut me up.”

He claimed to be a political prisoner who was enduring reprisal by former Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

He continued his defiance Tuesday on his podcast when he said, “The four months in federal prison not only didn’t break me, it empowered me. I am more energized and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”

Bannon renewed his attacks on Pelosi when he said, “She sent me to a federal prison as a political prisoner to do two things, to make sure that she tried to tamp down the power of this show, right, tamp down the power of the show, and also to break me. Nancy Pelosi, take out your number two pencil and write this down: this show has never been more powerful.”

Bannon is the defendant in another criminal case scheduled for trial in New York in December. He is accused of organizing a nonprofit organization that would use donations to build a wall along the Mexican border but keeping much of the money for himself.

He has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges.

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