Steve Bannon unchained: Federal prison ’empowered me,’ former Trump advisor says after serving sentence

(The Daily Signal) – Steve Bannon, a political pundit and former White House chief strategist for President Donald Trump, was released from prison Tuesday morning after serving a four-month sentence for refusing to comply with a Jan. 6 House committee subpoena.

Bannon departed from the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday morning, and mere hours later was back to hosting “WarRoom” on Real America’s Voice. The pro-Trump host was broadcasting from New York City, where he, along with his lawyers, hosted a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

“Nancy Pelosi sent me to a federal prison,” Bannon said on Tuesday morning’s livestream. “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 … and also to break me.”

Bannon had a message to the former speaker of the House: “Nancy Pelosi, take out your No. 2 pencil and write this down: This show has never been more powerful, the voices behind it have never been more powerful, the audience has never been more powerful, and we’re going to deliver a knockout blow to your progressive insanity on 5 November.”

In 2022, a jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress. The first related to Bannon’s refusal to sit down for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House committee, whereas the second pertained to his refusal to turn over documents to the committee.

At Bannon’s press conference in New York on Tuesday afternoon, Bannon said he learned a lot from his fellow inmates, which he described as mostly working-class black and Hispanic men. In particular, he said that these men see Vice President Kamala Harris as someone who has incarcerated minority populations en masse.

“The system of the Justice Department is broken,” Bannon said, adding that the DOJ and the federal government writ large have been “weaponized” by the Left against a “conservative grassroots movement.”

Bannon also said that he had spoken to Trump on the phone Tuesday morning after his release.

It wasn’t long, however, before things got weird at Bannon’s press conference in New York. After opening up the floor to questions, YouTube personality “Robby Roadsteamer,” a man who infiltrates Trump rallies and other conservative protests to mock them, took over the press conference and asked Bannon when the next insurrection was happening. He was swiftly removed by security.

Once an individual is held in contempt by Congress, it is the Department of Justice’s prerogative to prosecute the individual. Bannon, like Trump, felt the full weight of the federal government brought against him via the Biden-Harris administration’s DOJ. Meanwhile, though the House held Attorney General Merrick Garland himself in contempt of Congress for withholding information regarding President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents earlier this year, the Garland-run DOJ refused to prosecute.

While Garland got away scot-free, Bannon was in a jail cell. Bannon reported to prison on July 1 after the Supreme Court rejected his bid to delay his sentence during the appeals process.

Nevertheless, Bannon told his audience on Tuesday that “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.”

With just one week before the presidential election, conservatives rejoiced in Bannon’s freedom.

“Stephen K. Bannon is one of the most effective warriors the American Right has. That is why he was a political prisoner of the Biden-Harris regime,” Saurabh Sharma, president of American Moment, told The Daily Signal. “But make no mistake, no one can make more of an impact in six days than he can. We’re glad to have him back stronger and more focused than ever.”

“Few men leave prison stronger than they were before—Steve Bannon came out firing today, bigger and better than ever,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told The Daily Signal. “The regime threw him in prison for one simple reason—he’s a threat to their power. They never should have let him out. Because now he, along with the entire ‘WarRoom’ posse, is now going medieval on these bastards.”