Trump ally Steve Bannon was released from prison a week before Election Day

After spending four months behind bars for contempt of Congress, Steve Bannon was released from prison on Tuesday, exactly a week before Election Day.

Bannon left the federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, where he has been incarcerated for 120 days, on Tuesday morning, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons told NBC News.

Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump and a staunch – and inflammatory – supporter of the Republican candidate's re-election bid, was sentenced to four months in prison for defying a congressional subpoena to testify in the House special committee's investigation into the attack on the Capitol to testify on January 6th. In 2022, he was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress, but continually tried to appeal his conviction to avoid prison. In June, the Supreme Court finally rejected his last-minute appeal and he was ordered to report to prison.

Like Trump, Bannon has issued ominous warnings about the future of the country if the Republican nominee does so lose the election. He also parroted Trump's baseless claims of election fraud until he began his sentence. Just days before reporting to prison, he told NBC News there was “no chance” Democrats could win the election unless “they steal it.”

“If we don’t win, they will first of all destroy the constitution. It is the death of the American constitutional republic we know,” he said.

On the day his prison sentence began, Bannon told reporters outside the correctional facility that he was “proud to go to prison” – despite his best efforts to avoid it – and called it a courageous step to “stand up to it “, which he characterized as Democrats weaponizing the justice system.

With seven days until Election Day, Bannon's release comes at a critical time in the race, with polls showing Trump and Kamala Harris virtually deadlocked in key battleground states. Bannon's popular podcast “War Room” continued to air with guest hosts during his time in prison, and it's likely he'll slip right back into the role of one of Trump's most vocal and vicious allies.