Steve Bannon is going to prison.
The far-right media strategist and Donald Trump’s former White House adviser was ordered to report to federal prison on July 1 after he was convicted of contempt of Congress.
He arrived at FCI Danbury in Connecticut on Monday but not before broadcasting live on Real America’s Voice as part of his War Room podcast.
In a makeshift studio near the prison, Bannon lauded the success of the far-right nationalist party, National Rally, in the first round of the French parliamentary elections. Comparing the results to the 2016 Brexit vote, Bannon said the success of the French far-right was a precursor to what he expects to be a victory for Trump in November.
He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a “bad 72 hours” with Joe Biden’s dismal debate performance and the French election results. Bannon also celebrated the polling prowess of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party ahead of the British election on 4 July.
Outside of the prison in Danbury, Bannon was met by supporters, including Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and made a number of baseless claims.
“I’m a political prisoner of Nancy Pelosi. I’m a political prisoner of Merrick Garland. I’m a political prisoner of Joe Biden and the corrupt Biden establishment,” he said.
“I am proud to go to prison … This is what it takes to stand up to tyranny and this is what it takes to stand up to the Garland corrupt criminal DOJ … this what it takes to stand up to Nancy Pelosi. This is what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden … I’m proud to do it.”
Protesters who turned up at the prison chanted “traitor” while Bannon spoke.
Danbury, sometimes referred to as “Club Fed,” is a low-security prison with a small population of about 800 inmates, opening in 1940 to house both male and female prisoners.
During World War II, it held conscientious objectors such as poet Robert Lowell and civil rights activist James Peck.
The fictional Litchfield Prison in the Netflix show Orange is the New Black is partly based on the prison. Author Piper Kerman spent just over a year at Danbury in the mid-2000s and her memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, was adapted to make the program.
On Friday, Bannon failed to convince the Supreme Court to let him stay out of jail while he appealed his four-month sentence. The former Trump advisor was found in contempt of Congress after defying subpoenas to give evidence to the House committee investigating his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
His prison sentence mirrors the one handed down to former Trump aide Peter Navarro, who became the first Trumpworld figure to go to jail in connection with the Capitol attack. Navarro had similarly refused to comply with a subpoena from the congressional committee that investigated January 6 and the responses from Trump and his allies.
Bannon was sentenced in October 2022 but it was put on hold pending his appeal. That conviction was upheld in May, and a federal judge who ordered him to prison last month agreed with prosecutors who argued that there was “no legal basis” to let him avoid it.
Several House Republicans – who have tried to rewrite the narrative of the Capitol attack and undermine the convictions of hundreds of people in connection with the assault – pressed federal courts to intervene in Bannon’s case.
At least one House Republican filed a brief directly to the Supreme Court, claiming that the House select committee’s “entire process” was “tainted and must be dismissed as a matter of law.”
Bannon will now join half a dozen Trump allies who have served time for obstruction, campaign finance violations, fraud, and other charges surrounding the former president’s 2016 campaign, his real estate empire, and attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
In 2020, Bannon and three others were arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with a fundraising campaign to build a US-Mexico border wall. While still in the White House, Trump pardoned Bannon, sparing him a federal trial.
But Bannon faces similar fraud charges connected to the “We Build the Wall” scheme in New York, where he is scheduled to go on trial in September.