(PresidentialHill.com)- It might sound odd that Steve Bannon got what he wanted after he was sentenced to spend four months in prison, but that’s exactly what Chris Cillizza, the editor-at-large for CNN, wrote in a recent opinion piece on the outlet’s website.
Bannon, the one-time adviser to former President Donald Trump, received that sentence last Friday after he was convicted on charges of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the House select committee’s subpoena to testify about his knowledge of an role in the January 6, 2021, attacks at the U.S. Capitol building.
As Cillizza wrote in his piece:
“Bannon, despite doing a stint as an adviser to President Donald Trump, has always fashioned himself as an outsider to the political establishment. And he’s attempted to hone that persona since being fired from the White House in 2017.”
After his sentencing verdict was read aloud, Bannon was defiant, in a very characteristic way. In speaking after the sentence was handed down, he said:
“On November 8, there’s going to (be) judgment on the illegitimate Biden regime. And quite frankly, Nancy Pelosi and the entire committee.”
He was referring, of course, to the upcoming midterm elections, the results of which many people believe will be an indictment on the performance of President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party over the last two years.
Bannon also said voters would be “weighing and measuring” the FBI’s actions in its raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and Congress’ January 6 investigation as a whole when they head to the polls.
While Bannon was sentenced to spend four months behind bars, the judge in the case ruled that he wouldn’t have to serve any of that time as he appeals that ruling.
Cillizza said that’s exactly what Bannon wants, as he wrote of the appeals:
“While that all plays out, you can be sure that Bannon will cast himself as not only a political prisoner, but someone unfairly punished by anti-Trump forces for his unwillingness to turn on the former President. (Bannon has argued he couldn’t comply with the congressional subpoena because his conversations with Trump are protected by executive privilege.)”
David Schoen, Bannon’s lawyer in the case, even took it a step further, saying during the hearing for his client’s sentencing:
“It’s a case in which Mr. Bannon should make no apology. No American should make an apology.”
The sentence plays right into Bannon’s hands, Cillizza writes:
“What Bannon can now say is that he believes so deeply in Trump (and in the broader idea of a conspiracy against the former President) that he is willing to go to jail to defend those views.
“It gives him street cred with his intended audience that he didn’t have before. It’s not just words now for Bannon. It’s actions, too.”
So, while Bannon appeals his sentence to serve time in jail, he’s able to profess whatever he wants to his followers, in what Cillizza wrote is “very good for business.”
