Trump ally Steve Bannon walks free from prison under cover of darkness one week from Election Day
Steve Bannon has walked free from federal prison one week before Election Day, according to reports.
Donald Trump’s former White House adviser had been held at FCI Danbury in Connecticut after being sentenced to 120 days for contempt of Congress.
With his sentence ending on Tuesday, he was released in the early hours of the monring and was met at the facility by his daughter Maureen, CNN reported.
He is expected to hold a news conference later today in Manhattan – and also resume his War Room podcast, according to the Associated Press.
The far-right media strategist, 70, was ordered to serve four months in federal prison on July 1 after he was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena over the congressional investigation into the January 6 Capitol riots.
While behind bars, the convicted felon had been teaching fellow inmates, Rolling Stone reported.
He taught his class every Tuesday this fall, sometimes employing the Socratic method, to a crowd of roughly 50 fellow prisoners at the suburban prison, multiple sources told the outlet.
One Tuesday afternoon, Bannon asked his class who they believed would win in November. Most said Trump would.
But this poll led to a discussion around whether the former president might deploy the army against US citizens if he loses — a move Trump has considered in the past in other situations.
As recently as earlier this month, when asked on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures about chaos on Election Day, he suggested that any chaos wouldn’t arise from his followers, but from “the enemy from within,” referring to “some very bad people, some sick people, radical left lunatics.”
He then suggested that troops could be used to quell any conflict: “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
But when the prospect of Trump deploying the US military against US citizens was raised in the jailhouse class, Bannon said the Constitution prohibits it.
A student retorted: “You might need to remind Trump that he can’t do it.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Bannon reportedly asked with a mischievous smile.
The former Breitbart executive chair was lecturing to a variety of prisoners: drug dealers, fraudsters, sex crime offenders, and even one convicted January 6 rioter.
At one point, Bannon reportedly told the class that America had been founded on the principles of the Roman Republic, pointing to the Constitution as evidence of the founding fathers’ fear of a monarch, the magazine reported.