Former Trump aide Steve Bannon released from prison

Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon has been released from prison after spending four-months behind bars.

Bannon, 70, was released from a Danbury, Connecticut, correctional facility on Tuesday, Benjamin O’Cone, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman, told the BBC.

Bannon, a conservative podcast host who was key to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022 for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to a January 6 Capitol riot investigation.

According to the New York Times, upon Bannon’s release, he said: “If people think American politics has been divisive before, you haven’t seen anything”.

Bannon is expected to host his podcast – War Room – on Tuesday and hold a press conference in New York City.

Before he was sent to jail, Bannon relayed a consistent message of loyalty to Trump and hostility towards Democratic figures.

“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 before going to jail.

He promised he would continue to help Trump and his campaign from behind bars.

“I’ve served my country now for the last 10 or so years focusing on this,” he told the BBC before going to prison, referring to politics and Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) slogan. “If I have to do it in a prison, I do it in a prison – it makes no difference at all.”

The Trump loyalist claimed on his podcast in May that Democrats were “going to do everything to steal this election”.

He has repeatedly falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Bannon is still facing other legal troubles – having been indicted on charges of money laundering, fraud and conspiracy in a separate New York state case in 2022.

He has been accused of cheating donors to a fundraiser that promised to build a portion of a wall on the US-Mexico border. Bannon has pled not guilty to the charges.