Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP
Steve Bannon emerged Tuesday from four months in federal prison. He was tanned, supposedly “empowered,” and obviously eager to again help Donald Trump lie about election results if he loses.
Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress after he ignored a subpoena from the House January 6 Committee. The former Trump strategist—who claimed “executive privilege” allowed him to blow off the committee in 2021, even though he had last worked in White House in 2017—likely could have avoided prison if he’d negotiated with the panel or shown up and asserted his Fifth Amendment rights.
But he presented himself on his War Room show and in a press conference Tuesday as a freedom fighter.
“If you’re not prepared to be thrown in prison by this weaponized justice system, then you’re not prepared to stand up and fight for your country,” Bannon said after serving his sentence at a low-security prison in Connecticut.
Bannon insisted in his press conference that the 2020 election “was stolen” from Trump and said he would again urge Trump to declare victory on election night even if the results, yet again, are unclear and ballots are still being counted.
The War Room host said Trump, who had falsely claimed victory after 2 am on election night four years ago, erred only by failing to lie about the results at “11 o’clock,” instead. This year, Bannon said, “if the votes come in like it looks like they’re gonna come in, he should step up and inform American citizens of exactly what’s going on and not keep people in the dark like was done in 2020.”
Bannon insisted that he urged Trump to declare victory in 2020 because “the Democrat Party was going to steal the election with illegitimate mail in ballots.”
But that’s not what Bannon said in 2020. In an audio recording from an October 31, 2020, meeting, which I reported in 2022, Bannon said that Trump planned declare victory on election night even if he was losing.
“What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory,” Bannon said. “Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s the winner. He’s just gonna say he’s the winner.”
Bannon explained pretty clearly back then that Trump intended to take advantage of a perception that he was ahead, even if the reality differed. Because Democrats were more likely to vote by mail, their ballots would take longer to be counted. That would give them “a natural disadvantage,” Bannon said at the time. “And Trump’s going to take advantage of it. That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner.”
Special counsel Jack Smith cited Bannon’s statement in an October 2 motion as one of various pieces of evidence indicating that Trump before Election Day 2020 had formulated plans, if he faced defeat, to use a “false declaration” of victory to attempt to steal the election.
In 2024, Democrats are again more likely to vote by mail. In Pennsylvania, Democrats are reportedly voting by mail at twice the rate of Republicans. Trump may again have a chance to try to use the “red mirage” to convince his followers that he’s being cheated.
Bannon may be in an interlude between prison sentences. He is set face trial in December in New York for allegedly defrauding donors to a charity that claimed to be raising private funds to help build Trump’s promised wall along the Mexican border.
But until then, Bannon will have the chance to once again “go the mattresses,” as he put it, to help Trump return to the White House.
