Steve Bannon Made Bad Move in Delaying Prison Sentence: Attorney

Conservative media personality and Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon “has only himself to blame” for the timing of his four-month prison sentence during this year’s presidential election, legal analyst and attorney Dave Aronberg said Monday.

Bannon, a former White House chief strategist in the Trump administration, was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022 after being found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena issued to him by the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Bannon avoided starting his sentence by fighting his conviction on appeal, arguing that he failed to comply with the congressional subpoena based on executive privilege and that he had relied solely on the advice of his former lawyer.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Bannon’s latest attempt to stay out of prison while his appeal, which was dismissed by lower courts, means Bannon had to surrender by July 1 to begin serving his sentence. Bannon reported to a federal prison in Connecticut on Monday. Trump and President Joe Biden, meanwhile, became their parties’ presumptive 2024 presidential nominees earlier this year after a series of primary victories, likely setting up a rematch of the closely fought 2020 election.

In an appearance on MSNBC Good morning Joe On Monday, Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County in Florida, discussed Bannon’s prison sentence, noting that he will not be able to use his War room podcast as a platform for Trump until Election Day on November 5.

“Four months into the campaign, he’s got no one to blame but himself, because he could have served his sentence earlier… So Bannon would have been better off going straight to prison than dancing around the Monopoly board. He and his podcast, as a result, are going to be on hiatus for the next four months, and he’s got no one to blame but himself,” Aronberg said.

Bannon War room podcast is a political commentary show often known for its support of Trump and far-right views, conspiracy theories, and strong criticism of the Democratic Party. It airs live for 22 hours a week on a variety of platforms, including radio, Rumble, and Real America’s Voice.

Bannon created War room podcast in 2019 to oppose Trump’s first impeachment trial. After Trump’s Senate acquittal, the podcast became a haven for COVID-19 disinformation and a driving force in the “Stop the Steal” movement.

While Bannon’s shows average more than 100,000 viewers on conservative platforms Rumble and Gettr, and nearly a million downloads on Apple Podcasts, they are widely popular with right-wing and conservative audiences, particularly supporters of Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

Bannon has often invited a diverse range of guests, including politicians, analysts, members of the Trump administration, conservative commentators and activists who share his views. According to New York TimesBannon hired a team of nearly 20 guest hosts to continue the show while he served his prison sentence.

Guests included Andrew Giuliani, the son of Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Bannon’s daughter, Maureen; Noor bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s niece, known for her belief in conspiracy theories; and Jeffrey Clark, who served in the Justice Department under Trump and is facing criminal charges in Georgia over efforts to reverse Trump’s 2020 election defeat.

Newsweek reached out to the creators of the War Room podcast and the Trump campaign via email for comment.

Asked Monday by MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski about Bannon’s position as “the key communicator of Donald Trump’s threats of retaliation,” Jeremy Peters, a national reporter Timesnoted the important role Bannon’s podcast and other conservative shows play in Trump’s political movement.

“Key communicator is the best way to describe his role in the MAGA movement. After Rush Limbaugh died, there was no one who filled that void in talk radio, which is an important medium for conservatives and the Trump movement. Bannon, probably more than anyone else in AM radio or the podcast world, filled Limbaugh’s role and remains the primary messenger of Donald Trump’s venom, all of his grievances, all of these conspiracies about, you know, the deep state coming after you. That’s what Bannon preaches and he does it very effectively,” Peters said.

During CNN’s Thursday night presidential debate with President Joe Biden, Trump said his “revenge will be success. We will make this country successful again, because right now it’s a failing country.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with ABC News This week On Sunday, Bannon said he had no regrets about disregarding a congressional subpoena, while describing himself as a “political prisoner.”

“If I had to go to jail for the House to finally start acting, to start delegitimizing the illegal J6 committee, well, it was worth going to jail,” he said.