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NEW YORK (AP) — Longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon was released from federal prison early Tuesday and immediately resumed his full-throated support for the former president, urging Republicans to turn out in large numbers next week to defeat Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Bannon served a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. He left the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, in the pre-dawn hours and headed to Manhattan, where he resumed his WarRoom podcast and online show and later held an afternoon news conference.
“I’m finally out of being a political prisoner,” Bannon declared at the media event, saying that prominent Democrats hoped to break him. “I think you can see today I’m far from broken. I’ve been empowered by my four months in Danbury federal prison.”
The experience was empowering, he said, because of whom he met and what they had to say about Harris.
“I was able to listen, to observe and to learn and from working-class minorities — young African American men and Hispanic men and yes, Puerto Rican men — about what their lives are," Bannon said, claiming his fellow prisoners took a dim view of Harris and the Biden administration's record on incarceration.
He also reiterated his unfounded claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump and said he spoke with the former president on Tuesday, though he declined to provide specifics. Judges, election officials, cybersecurity experts and Trump’s own attorney general have all rejected his claims of mass voter fraud in 2020.
Bannon said similar things about the election and his time in prison on his podcast and web show earlier in the day. He bashed Democrats and their agenda, asserting that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent him to prison to silence his voice — despite a jury having convicted him and a judge having sentenced him.
Bannon, 70, reported to the prison July 1 after the Supreme Court rejected his bid to delay the prison sentence while he appeals his conviction.
A jury found Bannon guilty in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and a second for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement with Trump's efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race.
A federal appeals court panel upheld Bannon's convictions in May. Bannon is now asking the full appeals court to hear his case. His legal team had argued that the congressional subpoena was invalid because Trump had asserted executive privilege. Prosecutors, though, say Bannon had left the White House years before and Trump had never invoked executive privilege in front of the committee.
Bannon faces additional criminal charges in New York state court, alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges. A trial in that case is scheduled to begin in December.
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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.