Trump confidant Steve Bannon surrenders to federal prison

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to Donald Trump who has remained one of his most vocal advocates, has surrendered to prison, making him the latest aide in the ex-president’s orbit to be incarcerated. 

Bannon, a right-wing firebrand who helped build Trump’s Maga movement, is due to serve four months in federal prison in Connecticut following a conviction for contempt of Congress. He was charged for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the congressional committee probing the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

Bannon, former chair of Breitbart News, began serving his sentence after an extended legal fight that went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which on Friday denied his appeal. He joins roughly half a dozen Trump confidants to serve time in jail. 

Bannon continued to rail against his charges in recent days, calling himself a “political prisoner” being prosecuted by a partisan US justice department seeking to silence the Maga movement.

“They think by prosecuting me they are going to shut down one of the top advocates for President Trump,” Bannon said outside the prison on Monday. “I am proud to go to prison if this is what it takes to stand up to tyranny.” Chants of “lock him up” could be heard as he addressed supporters.

Bannon was officially taken into custody on Monday morning, according to a statement to the Associated Press by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Trump himself is due to be sentenced on July 11 for his New York fraud conviction tied to “hush money” payments to an adult film actress, though he is not expected to face jail time.

Other Trump aides who have faced jail time include Peter Navarro, a former White House trade adviser, who reported to prison in March after being convicted on contempt of Congress charges similar to Bannon’s.  

Bannon’s imprisonment comes as the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken as president, as he faces three separate indictments at state and federal level.

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Carl Nichols, the judge presiding over Bannon’s contempt case, had previously halted his imprisonment while Bannon appealed against it. But an appellate court earlier this year unanimously rejected Bannon’s challenges, including the claim that his conduct was “affirmatively authorised by government officials”.

Bannon’s legal team has claimed he believed he was protected under Trump’s executive privilege, even though Bannon had left his White House position as the then-president’s chief strategist in 2017. 

Government lawyers argued Bannon had refused to co-operate with the committee even after Trump had waived his executive privilege claim, adding that much of the evidence requested from Bannon was not privileged.