Former Trump adviser Bannon hosts a podcast after his release from prison: NPR

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

Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

hide signature

switch caption

Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images

Steve Bannon, 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 in 2022 on two counts for defying subpoenas from a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. He left prison a week before Election Day, just as Trump and Vice President Harris were delivering their 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.” Wearing a black shirt and with slicked-back gray hair, Bannon falsely claimed that former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent him to federal prison as a political prisoner “to weaken the power of this program and break me.”

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

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

Bannon served a four-month sentence in federal custody in Danbury, Connecticut. Another former Trump advisor, Peter Navarrohe also served four months in prison after being convicted of the same charges.

During Bannon’s time in prison, the “War Room” podcast was populated by various people. He marked his return to the podcast with a fiery message to Trump supporters ahead of Election Day, in which he told them: “This is a fight not just for where this country is going, but for what this country stands for.”

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

Trump’s supporters in Congress also leveled accusations of politicization of the Justice Department, pointing to two federal indictments filed against the former president over his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the collection of secret documents.

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