Bannon vows Trump’s opponents will be prosecuted in a second term

Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, vowed investigations and prosecutions of those who have probed the former president and his political allies, declaring at a conservative gathering Saturday that Inauguration Day in 2025 will be “accountability day.”

Pointing to Trump’s recent conviction in New York, Bannon told a crowd at Turning Point Action’s “The People’s Convention” in Detroit, hours before Trump was scheduled to speak, that the former president’s allies are going to “get every single receipt.”

“You are going to be investigated, prosecuted and incarcerated,” he said. “This has nothing to do with retribution. It has nothing to do with revenge. Because retribution and revenge might be another order of magnitude. This has to do with justice.”

Bannon was referring to?recent comments by Trump vowing to be his supporters’ “retribution”?and saying?that “sometimes revenge can be justified.”

Trump has repeatedly bypassed opportunities from friendly interviewers — including multiple conversations with Fox News host and friend Sean Hannity — to dial back his rhetoric and walk away from threats of retaliation against his political opponents and over his criminal prosecutions.

“Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it would be easy because it’s Joe Biden,” the former president told Hannity earlier this month.

Some Trump allies, including another veteran of his 2016 campaign and the Trump White House, former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, have downplayed the former president’s comments. Earlier this month, Conway noted that Trump’s Justice Department did not try to prosecute Hillary Clinton despite the chants of “Lock her up!” at 2016 campaign rallies.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump looks to Itasha Dotson, right, as Carlos Chambers listens at a campaign event at 180 Church, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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But other allies have responded more forcefully to Trump’s conviction in his New York hush money trial. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo, an attorney in the prosecutor’s office, testify “about the unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump.” In response to the verdict, several Republican senators — including vice presidential contenders Marco Rubio of Florida and J.D. Vance of Ohio — signed a letter signifying they would not work with the Biden administration to pass legislation, confirm his judicial nominees or increase non-security spending.

Bannon’s incendiary speech comes two weeks before he is due to report to prison. He was convicted of contempt of Congress in 2022 after failing to provide documents and testimony to the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. He was sentenced to four months in prison, and a federal judge earlier this month ordered him to report to prison by July 1.

Once a top adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign and a senior White House aide, the bombastic Bannon is now a right-wing podcaster with a following of loyal Trump supporters.

He is no longer the Trump insider he once was, but Bannon was influential in House conservatives’ ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and he has taken credit for the removal of former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. His “War Room” podcast has also been a megaphone for false claims of election fraud and a rewriting of the history of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Rallying the room around the former president’s recent conviction in New York, Bannon claimed, without elaborating, that Trump is “eligible for 700 years in prison” and “they want him to serve all of it.”

Trump’s sentencing in the New York case, so far his only criminal conviction in the four cases he faces, is set for July 11. The judge can sentence the former president to probation or up to four years in state prison on each count, with a maximum of 20 years.

Bannon pointed to Trump allies such as Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani who have been prosecuted and claimed, “they’re turning people into political prisoners and sending people to prison, and they will send every one of you in this audience to prison also.”

Bannon told the crowd they are the “vanguard of this revolution,” adding, “we are not prepared to be governed by criminals” and vowing to “purge” the Justice Department and “take apart” the FBI.

“November 5 is judgment day. January 20, 2025, will be accountability day,” Bannon said.