Steve Bannon

This article is about the American alt-right political activist and strategist. For the American progressive political writer and blogger, see Steve Benen.
Steve Bannon
Bannon in 2024
Senior Counselor to the President[1]
In office
January 20, 2017 – August 18, 2017
Serving with Kellyanne Conway
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byJohn Podesta
(as Counselor, 2015)
Succeeded byKellyanne Conway
White House Chief Strategist
In office
January 20, 2017 – August 18, 2017
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Personal details
Born
Stephen Kevin Bannon

(1953-11-27) November 27, 1953 (age 70)
Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouses
  • Cathleen Houff Jordan
    ​
    ​
    (div. 1988)​
  • Mary Piccard
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1995; div. 1997)​
  • Diane Clohesy
    ​
    ​
    (m. 2006; div. 2009)​
Children3
EducationVirginia Tech (BA)
Georgetown University (MA)
Harvard University (MBA)
Signature
Military service
Branch/serviceUnited States Navy
Years of service1976–1983
RankLieutenant[5]
Criminal information
Criminal statusReleased
Conviction(s)July 2022:
Contempt of Congress (2 counts)
Criminal chargeSeptember 2022: (New York)[2]
PenaltyContempt of Congress: 4 months in prison[3]
Imprisoned atFederal Correctional Institution, Danbury, 2024[4]
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Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of U.S. president Donald Trump's first administration,[6][7] before Trump discharged him.[8] He is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News and previously served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.[9]

Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy from 1977 to 1983, after which he worked for two years at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. In 1993, he became acting director of the research project Biosphere 2. He was an executive producer on 18 Hollywood films from 1991 to 2016. In 2007, he co-founded Breitbart News, a website which he described in 2016 as "the platform for the alt-right".[a]

In 2016, Bannon became the chief executive officer of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign[18][19] and was appointed chief strategist and senior Counselor to the President following Trump's election. He left the position eight months later and rejoined Breitbart. In January 2018, after his criticism of Trump's children was reported in Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, he was disavowed by Trump and subsequently left Breitbart.[20][21]

After leaving the White House, Bannon opposed the Republican Party establishment and supported insurgent candidates in Republican primary elections. Bannon's reputation as a political strategist was questioned when former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore, despite Bannon's support, lost the 2017 United States Senate election in Alabama to Democrat Doug Jones.[22][23][24] Bannon had declared his intention to become "the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement".[25] Accordingly, he has supported many national populist conservative political movements around the world, including creating a network of far-right groups in Europe.

In August 2020, Bannon and three others were arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the We Build the Wall fundraising campaign. According to the grand jury indictment, Bannon and the defendants promised that all contributions would go to building a U.S.–Mexico border wall, but instead enriched themselves. Bannon pleaded not guilty.[26] On January 20, 2021, on his last day in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, sparing him from a federal trial, but did not pardon his codefendants.[27][28][29] Federal pardons do not cover state offenses, and in September 2022, Bannon was charged in New York state court on counts of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with the campaign.[2][30]

Bannon refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the 2021 United States Capitol attack. He was subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury on two criminal charges of contempt of Congress. In July 2022, he was convicted on both counts in a jury trial. He was sentenced in October 2022 to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine.[31][3][32][33] After losing his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bannon surrendered to a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, where he was imprisoned July 1 – October 29, 2024.[34][35]

  1. ^ "Executive Office Of The President Annual Report To Congress On White House Office Personnel White House Office As Of: Friday, June 30, 2017" (PDF). whitehouse.gov. p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2024 – via National Archives.
  2. ^ a b Lowell, Hugo (September 8, 2022). "Steve Bannon charged with money laundering and conspiracy in New York". The Guardian. eISSN 1756-3224. ISSN 0261-3077. OCLC 60623878. Archived from the original on September 12, 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Sangal, Aditi (October 21, 2022). "'The appeal in this case is bulletproof,' Bannon's attorney says after sentence". CNN. Archived from the original on June 9, 2024. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  4. ^ Dempsey, Christina; Gagne, Michael (July 1, 2024). "Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon says he's 'proud' as he reports to Danbury prison". Retrieved July 1, 2024.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Post20170209 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Caldwell, Christopher (February 26, 2017) [February 25, 2017]. "What Does Steve Bannon Want?". Opinion. The New York Times. p. SR1. eISSN 1553-8095. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on March 6, 2017.
  7. ^ Dawsey, Josh (August 18, 2017). "Bannon out as White House chief strategist". Politico. Arlington VA. Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  8. ^ Dawsey, Josh (January 3, 2018). "Trump slams Bannon: 'When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind'". The Florida Times-Union. Archived from the original on June 1, 2024. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
  9. ^ Johnson, Eliana; Vogel, Kenneth P.; Dawsey, Josh (April 5, 2017). "Megadonor urged Bannon not to resign Bannon had only attended one NSC meeting". Politico. Arlington, VA. Archived from the original on April 6, 2017. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Elliott was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Posner, Sarah (August 22, 2016). "How Donald Trump's New Campaign Chief Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019. Retrieved November 20, 2016. 'We're [i.e., Breitbart News is] the platform for the alt-right,' Bannon told me proudly when I interviewed him at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July.
  12. ^ See:
    • Stokols, Eli (October 13, 2016). "Trump fires up the alt-right". Politico. Arlington, VA. Archived from the original on October 13, 2016. Retrieved June 14, 2022. ... the unmistakable imprint of Breitbart News, the 'alt-right' website ...
    • "The rise of the alt-right". The Week. October 1, 2016. Archived from the original on October 9, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2020. Another major alt-right platform is Breitbart.com, a right-wing news site ...
    • Rahn, Will (2016). "Steve Bannon and the alt-right: a primer". CBS News. Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2020. Bannon's Breitbart distinguished itself from the rest of the conservative media in two significant ways this cycle... The second was through their embrace of the alt-right ...
  13. ^ Hafner, Josh (August 26, 2016). "For the Record: For Trump, everything's going to be alt-right". USA Today. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2017. Breitbart News, declared 'the platform for the alt-right' last month by then-chair, Steve Bannon.
  14. ^ Borchers, Callum (November 15, 2016). "'Can you name one white nationalist article at Breitbart?' Challenge accepted!". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 6, 2021. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
  15. ^ Taylor, Jessica (November 20, 2016). "Energized By Trump's Win, White Nationalists Gather To 'Change The World'". National Public Radio. Washington DC. Archived from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  16. ^ Sterling, Joe (November 17, 2016). "White nationalism, a term once on the fringes, now front and center". CNN. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
  17. ^ Corn, David; Vicens, AJ (November 18, 2016). "Here's Evidence Steve Bannon Joined a Facebook Group That Posts Racist Rants and Obama Death Threats". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on February 1, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2018. This Facebook group is for an outfit called Vigilant Patriots, which claims its goals are defending and upholding the Constitution and preserving "our history and culture". As of Friday morning, it listed nearly 3,600 members, including Stephen Bannon, who apparently joined the group seven years ago.
  18. ^ Acosta, Jim; Bash, Dana; Kopan, Tal (November 14, 2016). "Trump picks Priebus as White House chief of staff, Bannon as top adviser". CNN. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved August 20, 2021.
  19. ^ Rahn 2016.
  20. ^ Baker, Peter; Haberman, Maggie (January 3, 2018). "Trump Breaks With Bannon, Saying He Has 'Lost His Mind'". The New York Times. eISSN 1553-8095. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on March 5, 2018.
  21. ^ Relman, Eliza (January 4, 2018). "Steve Bannon says Ivanka Trump is 'dumb as a brick'". Business Insider. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference alabama was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Prokop, Andrew (December 12, 2017). "Steve Bannon's Republican critics are gleefully dunking on him for Roy Moore's shocking loss". Vox. Archived from the original on December 16, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  24. ^ Nguyen, Tina. "'He Reaped What He Sowed': Trump Excommunicates Bannon and the Base Follows Suit". The Hive. Archived from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  25. ^ Horowitz, Jason (March 9, 2018). "Steve Bannon Is Done Wrecking the American Establishment. Now He Wants to Destroy Europe's". The New York Times. eISSN 1553-8095. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on March 11, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  26. ^ Jacobs, Shayna (August 31, 2020). "Steve Bannon's trial set for May in border wall conspiracy case". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  27. ^ https://www.reuters.com/legal/fresh-off-prison-release-former-trump-adviser-bannon-due-back-court-2024-11-12/
  28. ^ Cite error: The named reference pardon was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  29. ^ Lemire, Jonathan; Tucker, Eric; Colvin, Jill (April 20, 2021). "Trump pardons ex-strategist Steve Bannon, dozens of others". Associated Press. Archived from the original on March 6, 2021. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
  30. ^ Jacobs, Shayna (September 8, 2022). "Bannon charged with fraud, money laundering, conspiracy in 'We Build the Wall'". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on September 11, 2022.
  31. ^ Cite error: The named reference sentence was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  32. ^ Reilly, Ryan J. (July 22, 2022). "Steve Bannon found guilty in Jan. 6 contempt of Congress trial". NBC News. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022.
  33. ^ "Stephen K. Bannon Sentenced to Four Months in Prison on Two Counts of Contempt of Congress" (Press release). United States Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. October 21, 2022. Archived from the original on October 31, 2022. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  34. ^ Whitehurst, Lindsay; Hagh, Susan (July 1, 2024). "Trump ally Steve Bannon surrenders to federal prison to serve 4-month sentence on contempt charges". Associated Press. Retrieved July 1, 2024.
  35. ^ Cite error: The named reference bannonreleased was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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