Steve Bannon turned himself in to prison on Monday after the supreme court rejected his last-minute appeal to avoid prison time for defying multiple subpoenas surrounding the House’s January 6 insurrection investigation.
He live-streamed his drive to Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), Danbury, the minimum-security prison in Connecticut where he will serve his four-month sentence, on his War Room podcast and show on Rumble.
“I have no regrets and I’m proud of what I did,” Bannon, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, told a gaggle of press and supporters before turning himself in to prison. “The J6 committee was completely illegitimate.”
At the press conference, Bannon, who was joined by the far-right Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, appeared gleeful. He taunted the media outlets in attendance, urged supporters to take up the “fight” and gloated about the supreme court’s ruling that presidents have “absolute” immunity for official acts.
Federal prosecutors say Bannon believed that he was “above the law” when he refused a deposition with the January 6 House select committee, in addition to refusing to turn over documents on his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results.
The supreme court’s order came in response to Bannon asking the country’s highest court earlier this month to delay his prison sentence in an emergency application.
Bannon has claimed the convictions against him are politically motivated, with his lawyer David Schoen saying that the case raises “serious constitutional issues” that need to be investigated by the supreme court.
In an interview last Sunday, the former Trump adviser told ABC host Jonathan Karl that he considers himself a “political prisoner”.
“It won’t change me. It will not suppress my voice. My voice will not be suppressed when I’m there,” he said, adding that he has no regrets about defying the subpoenas.
“If it took me going to prison to finally get the House to start to move, to start to delegitimize the illegitimate J6 committee, then, hey, guess what, my going to prison is worth it,” he said.
