Former Trump advisor Bannon hosts podcast after getting out of prison: NPR

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon arrives at a news conference outside a federal penitentiary in Danbury, Conn. on July 1, 2024.

Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

change caption

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 serving four months behind bars for contempt of Congress.

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

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

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

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

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

A variety of people filled in on the “War Room” podcast while Bannon was in prison. 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.”

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

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

Attorney General Merrick Garland has dismissed the charges. In recent years, the department has twice charged President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, with gun and tax crimes; accused two Democratic members of Congress of corruption; and investigated the president himself over his handling of classified documents after his vice presidency.