Former Trump adviser Bannon hosts podcast after being released from prison: NPR

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon arrives for a news conference outside a federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, on July 1, 2024.

Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

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Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

Steve Bannon, the right-wing podcaster and former political adviser to former President Donald Trump, was released from federal prison Tuesday morning after spending four months behind bars for contempt of Congress.

Bannon was convicted in 2022 on two counts of defying subpoenas from the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a group of Trump supporters. He left prison a week before Election Day, as Trump and Vice President Harris delivered their respective final messages in a close race for the White House.

Just hours after his release, Bannon returned to host a new episode of his daily podcast “War Room.” Bannon, dressed in a black shirt and with slicked-back gray hair, falsely claimed that former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had sent him to federal prison as a political prisoner “to curb the power of this show and break me.” .

“Four months in federal prison didn’t break me. It strengthened me,” Bannon told his online audience. “I am more energized and focused than I have ever been in my entire life.”

Bannon echoed false arguments from other Republicans, including Trump, who accuse Democrats of weaponizing the Justice Department and the legal system against members of the party.

Bannon served his four-month sentence at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Another former Trump aide, Peter Navarro, also served four months in prison after being convicted of the same charges.

While Bannon was in prison, several people spoke up for the “War Room” podcast. He marked his return to the podcast with a fiery message to Trump's supporters ahead of Election Day, telling them: “This is a fight not just about the direction of this country, but about what this country stands for.”

Bannon claimed that Democrats “have no intention of giving up power.”

Trump's supporters in Congress have also leveled accusations of politicization against the Justice Department, pointing to the two federal indictments against the former president for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied the allegations. In recent years, the department has twice charged President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, with gun and tax crimes; accused two Democratic congressmen of corruption; and investigated the president himself for his handling of classified documents after his vice presidency.