When former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon goes to prison, he won’t be serving time at what’s known as a “Club Fed,” the most comfortable type of facility in the federal system, as he had wanted, according to people familiar with the arrangements.
Instead of a minimum-security prison camp, where many nonviolent offenders serve their time, Bannon – now a right-wing podcaster with a following of loyal Trump supporters – is set to report next month to the low-security federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, one of the sources told CNN.
A federal judge ruled recently that Bannon must turn himself in by July 1 to begin serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress even as he appeals the case. His attorneys initially thought he may be able to do his time at a camp, the sources said.
But Bannon isn’t eligible for the lowest-level prison setup because he still has a pending criminal case against him in New York, where he is fighting the charges and set to go to trial in September. That case accuses him of defrauding donors in a fundraising effort branded the “We Build the Wall” campaign for a border wall between the US and Mexico.
. . . It doesn’t have cells, and instead houses its inmates in open pods. Yet it does have a noticeable barrier — referred to colloquially as “the wall” — between the prison facility and the outside world, which prison camps don’t have.
More than 1,000 male prisoners are in the Danbury facility. Its much smaller adjacent prison camp for women was immortalized in a former prisoner’s memoir that inspired the TV show “Orange is the New Black.”
. . . Bannon spoke at a conservative gathering in Detroit this weekend where Trump also spoke. Bannon vowed that Trump’s political opponents and federal law enforcement authorities would face blowback if Trump wins a second term as president.
“You are going to be investigated, prosecuted and incarcerated,” Bannon said.
And Boris Epshteyn, one of the most influential legal advisers around Trump currently, has been part of Bannon’s legal defense strategy, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
As if we need more reason to NOT vote for Trump.