Politics
Steve Bannon released from prison one week before Election Day
UPDATE (Oct. 29, 2024; 11:54 a.m.): This post has been updated to include comments Steve Bannon made following his prison release on Tuesday.
Having served a four-month stint behind bars on a conviction for contempt of Congress, Steve Bannon was released from prison on Tuesday, exactly one week before Election Day.
Bannon exited the federal correctional facility on Tuesday morning in Danbury, Connecticut, where he has been locked up for the past 120 days, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson told NBC News.
A former Donald Trump adviser and a staunch — and incendiary — supporter of the Republican nominee’s re-election bid, Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison for defying a congressional subpoena to testify in the House select committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. He was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022 but continuously sought to appeal his conviction in a bid to avoid serving time. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected his eleventh-hour appeal in June, and he was ordered to report to prison.
Like Trump, Bannon has issued ominous warnings about the future of the country if the GOP nominee should lose the election. He also parroted Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud, right up until he began serving his sentence. Just days before reporting to prison, he told NBC News there was “no chance” Democrats could win the election unless “they’re stealing it.”
“If we don’t win the — first of all, they shred the Constitution. It is the death of the constitutional American republic we know,” he said.
On the day his sentence began, Bannon told reporters outside the correctional facility that he was “proud to go to prison” — despite having tried hard to avoid doing so — and framed it as a courageous move to “stand up to” what he characterized as Democrats’ weaponization of the justice system.
With seven days until Election Day, Bannon’s release comes at a critical juncture in the race, as polls show Trump and Kamala Harris practically deadlocked in key battleground states.
Bannon’s popular podcast, “War Room,” has continued to air with guest hosts while he was in prison, and Bannon jumped right back into the role of one of Trump’s most vocal and pernicious allies on Tuesday. Appearing on his podcast shortly after his release, Bannon said his stint behind bars “not only didn’t break me, it empowered me,” He also echoed his past remarks, calling himself a “political prisoner.”
Bannon told The New York Times in an interview on Tuesday as he left the correctional facility that he would encourage Trump to once again prematurely declare victory if the vote tallies on Election Day — before all votes are counted — showed that the Republican nominee was ahead.
“He should stand up and say: ‘Hey, I’ve won this. And we have teams right now that are going to make sure that this thing is not going to be stolen,’” Bannon told the Times.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
The meeting came ahead of a markup planned for next week on AI policy and kids online safety measures…
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Former Rep. Trey Gowdy insists he’s not interested in running in the South Carolina special election. But a new poll suggests Gowdy would be formidable if he changed his mind.
Gowdy holds a massive lead over seven other potential and declared GOP candidates for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s seat, according to a poll from Republican-aligned firm Peak Insights that was obtained by POLITICO.
Gowdy draws 38 percent of the vote. The actual candidates in the race are bunched closely, with no clear frontrunner: Rep. Ralph Norman trails at 13 percent support, followed closely by both Rep. Russell Fry and Sen. Darline Graham, Lindsey’s sister who is running for a full term after being appointed, who both sit at 9 percent. Businessman Mark Lynch, a self-funder who lost a Senate primary to Graham last summer, pulls 7 percent support. The survey of 900 likely GOP primary voters for South Carolina’s special election was conducted before anyone formally entered the contest.
The election will be a test of Trump’s power. He endorsed Darline Graham last week, but that hasn’t stopped other prominent South Carolina Republicans from jumping in the race, all of them touting their loyalty to the president — despite not having his formal support.
And at least according to the poll, his endorsement doesn’t shift things much. When respondents are informed that Trump “asked Darline Graham Nordone to run in the special election for U.S. Senate, saying if she runs, she has his complete and total endorsement,” Graham’s support improves from 9 percent to 16 percent, and Gowdy falls from 38 percent to 35 percent.
The poll is a sign of why some prominent Republicans — like his longtime friend, Sen. Tim Scott — may want Gowdy in the race. Peak Insights has polled for Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as well as the NRSC and the Republican National Committee among many others.
Gowdy left the U.S. House in 2019 and now hosts a show on Fox News. Through a spokesperson, he said he “has not had any conversations about the open senate seat and does not have any interest in it.”
That hasn’t stopped Scott from pushing his longtime buddy to run. Scott advocated for Gowdy to be appointed to the vacant Senate seat after Lindsey Graham’s death, before South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham to the seat. Scott announced last week he was recruiting Gowdy to run in the special election, before Graham announced she would run.
“I can’t think of a better person that I think best represents the heart of South Carolina than Trey Gowdy,” said Scott during a press conference Wednesday. “I’m trying to get him interested in it, but we’ll see if that works out at all.”
Scott and the NRSC have not yet issued an endorsement in the special election. Scott praised Graham during a Fox News interview Monday, saying she is “strong so far, calm under pressure, and really poised.”
The meeting came ahead of a markup planned for next week on AI policy and kids online safety measures…
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