Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon released from prison ahead of US vote

Steve Bannon, a prominent right-wing figure and former senior adviser to Donald Trump, was released from prison Tuesday after spending nearly four months behind bars and just a week ahead of the US election.

Bannon left a federal prison in Connecticut where he was serving time for a contempt of Congress conviction, Federal Bureau of Prisons records showed.

“I’m not broken, I’m empowered,” the 70-year-old told The New York Times outside the prison.

Bannon was convicted of defying a subpoena to testify before the congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

Bannon said it was “1,000%” worth going to prison for refusing to testify.

“If you’re not prepared to go to prison to fight for your country you’re not prepared to fight for your country,” he told The Times.

Bannon is expected to speak to journalists later in New York at 1900 GMT.

When he entered prison on July 1, he defiantly said he was “proud” to serve time “if it’s what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden.”

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 while appealing his conviction.

Blanket pardon 

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, ordering him to report to prison by July 1.

Much has changed in US politics since then, with Biden dropping out of the race and Kamala Harris replacing him as the Democratic nominee.

Bannon took over a senior role late in Trump’s 2016 campaign and later served in the White House as his chief strategist, leaving after seven months reportedly due to conflicts with other top staffers.

Though he no longer works officially for the ex-president, he has continued to use his influence to get him back in the White House, mainly through his podcast “The War Room.”

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 capital riot, as thousands of pro-Trump people overran the congress building to block certification of Biden’s win over Trump, Bannon spoke by telephone with the then president.

Consequently, congressional investigators had wanted to question Bannon about his role in those events.

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

Another former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, served a prison term, also for defying a congressional subpoena to testify about January 6, before being released in July.