CNN
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Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former White House strategist, reported to a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, on Monday to begin a four-month sentence for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
Bannon is the second former Trump aide to be convicted and jailed for contempt of Congress, since Peter Navarro began serving a four-month sentence earlier this year.
Both men were convicted of failing to comply with subpoenas issued by a now-disbanded House select committee that conducted the investigation on Jan. 6, 2021. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a hopeless attempt by Bannon, who is challenging his conviction in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., to avoid reporting to prison.
Bannon has said he is not ignoring the House committee and is simply following advice from his lawyers not to comply with subpoenas until lawmakers resolve Trump’s executive privilege claims in the case — a claim the court did not allow him to make to the jury hearing the case.
The conservative podcaster is a staunch supporter of President Trump and a vocal supporter of his reelection effort.
The MAGA media firebrand has had a busy schedule in the days leading up to his sentence: last week he tried unsuccessfully to persuade Trump to skip CNN’s presidential debates, and he continues to host a far-right podcast in which he vows to exact revenge on his political opponents and jail current Justice Department officials.
And he had several mainstream media reporters present during the broadcast as he promoted his story of political martyrdom.
“When I’m in prison, I’m going to have more power than I have right now,” Bannon said last week.
He has been portrayed in public as an unconcerned man, unaware of any qualms or fears about his stay in the federal facility.
“I’m not going to sit there and say, ‘Oh, I’m unhappy,'” Bannon told CNN.
Sources close to Bannon paint a different picture, describing him as someone torn between denial about avoiding prison time and anxiety about what life behind bars would be like.
For criminal defendants, there are worse prisons than the facility where Bannon will spend the next four months. Danbury Correctional Facility has a relatively small inmate population, fewer than 1,200 men and women.
The low-security facility where Bannon is being held houses white-collar criminals but could also include violent and sex offenders. The concession stand sells a variety of snacks, from peanut butter to plantain chips, according to an online listing.
But Bannon’s world is shrinking.
Inmates don’t have access to the internet, people familiar with the prisons said. Inmates held at Danbury can send emails without attachments, but the emails pass through a surveillance system and are delayed. Federal Bureau of Prisons rules prohibit inmates from conducting business while incarcerated.
In addition to access to email, inmates at Danbury Prison are given a few hundred minutes of talk time each month to use in 15-minute increments on their wall phones. Once their monthly minutes are used up, there is no option to extend them.
It’s a far cry from broadcasting to Trump supporters for hours each day, but Bannon insisted his media platform, “War Room,” would thrive in his absence.
“We are a populist movement. This is all about the audience,” Bannon said. “If I never go back to the War Room again, that doesn’t change anything.”
He too had high hopes of success in the coming months.
“I’m working around the clock on this campaign,” said Bannon, who has no formal role in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign but remains one of the former president’s most staunch supporters after being fired from the White House.
“I think being in prison will have a much bigger impact on my campaign than I do now,” he said.
But for now, Bannon will undergo the usual intake process for Danbury prisoners on Monday: He will go through a metal detector, be strip searched, then undergo a mental health evaluation, then be taken to a housing unit where he will be given a sleeping bag, assigned a bed and begin adjusting to prison life.
That life doesn’t include dwelling on fan mail, Bannon said.
“You have to be 100 percent focused on winning,” he said of those who might send messages of support to his phone.
“Don’t send me letters, I won’t read them,” he added.
