Steve Bannon
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 administration.[4][5] He is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News and previously served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.[6]
Steve Bannon
Office established
Office abolished
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Cathleen Houff Jordan(div. 1988)
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Mary Piccard(m. 1995; div. 1997)
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Diane Clohesy(m. 2006; div. 2009)
3
July 2022:
Contempt of Congress (2 counts)
4 months in prison[2]
1976–1983
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy for seven years in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After his military service, 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 became an executive producer in Hollywood, producing 18 films between 1991 and 2016. In 2007, he co-founded Breitbart News, a far-right[i] website which he described in 2016 as "the platform for the alt-right".[I]
In 2016, Bannon became the chief executive officer of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign[32][33] 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, Bannon was disavowed by Trump for critical comments reported in the Michael Wolff book Fire and Fury, and also left Breitbart.[34][35]
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.[36][37][38] Bannon had declared his intention to become "the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement".[39] 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.[40] On January 20, 2021, on his last day in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, sparing him from a federal trial.[41][42] 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 "We Build the Wall" campaign.[1][43]
In November 2020, Bannon's Twitter account was permanently suspended after he suggested that the federal government's infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray should be executed.[44]
Bannon was held in contempt of Congress in October 2021 after he 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 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 on October 21, 2022, to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine.[45][2][46][47] He is appealing against his conviction and sentence, and his sentence was put on hold pending the appeal.[48]
Early life and education
Bannon was born November 27, 1953,[49][50][51] in Norfolk, Virginia, to Doris (née Herr), a homemaker, and Martin J. Bannon Jr.,[52] who worked as an AT&T telephone lineman and as a middle manager.[53][54] He grew up in a working-class family that was pro-Kennedy and pro-union Democrat.[55] He is of Irish and German descent. Much of his mother's side of the family settled in the Baltimore area.[56] Bannon graduated from Benedictine College Preparatory, a private, Catholic, military high school in Richmond, Virginia, in 1971, and then attended Virginia Tech,[57] where he served as the president of the student government association.[58] During the summers he worked at a local junkyard.[59]
In 1976, he graduated from Virginia Tech College of Architecture and Urban Studies with a bachelor's degree in urban planning. While serving in the navy, he earned a master's degree in national security studies in 1983 from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.[60] In 1985,[62] Bannon earned a Master of Business Administration degree with honors from Harvard Business School.[63][64]
Career
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy for seven years in the late 1970s and early 1980s;[57] he served on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster as a surface warfare officer in the Pacific Fleet, and afterwards as a special assistant to the chief of naval operations at the Pentagon.[65] Bannon's job at the Pentagon was, among other things, handling messages between senior officers and writing reports about the state of the Navy fleet worldwide.[66] While at the Pentagon, Bannon attended Georgetown University at night and obtained his master's degree[57] in national security studies.[59]
In 1980, Bannon was deployed to the Persian Gulf to assist with Operation Eagle Claw during the Iran hostage crisis. In a 2015 interview, Bannon said that the mission's failure marked a turning point in his political world-view from largely apolitical to strongly Reaganite, which was further reinforced by the September 11 attacks.[3][67] He recounted,
Post-White House career
Work abroad
After leaving the White House, Bannon declared his intention to become "the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement".[39] He toured Europe to speak at events with various far-right political parties there, in a bid to build a network of right-wing populist-nationalist parties aspiring to government.[225] Bannon visited the Dutch Party for Freedom,[226] the Freedom Party of Austria,[227] the UK Conservative Party,[228][229][230][231][232][233] the Swiss People's Party,[234] the UK Independence Party,[235] the Flemish Vlaams Belang,[114] the Belgian People's Party,[114] Alternative for Germany,[236] France's National Front (now the National Rally),[237] the Italian League, the Brothers of Italy,[115] Hungary's Fidesz,[238] the Sweden Democrats,[239] the Polish Law and Justice,[240] Spain's Vox,[241] the Finns Party,[114] the pan-European identitarian movement,[242] Republika Srpska's Alliance of Independent Social Democrats,[243] the Five Star Movement,[244][245] and the Israeli Likud.[246] Bannon believes that these movements – along with Japan's Shinzo Abe, India's Narendra Modi, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabia's Mohammad bin Salman, China's Xi Jinping, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,[247] and Trump, as well as similar leaders in Egypt, the Philippines, Poland, and South Korea – are part of a global shift towards nationalism.[248][249][250] Bannon's attempt to build a network of far-right parties in Europe had only limited success;[251] while he appeared at events with the French National Rally's Marine Le Pen and the Italian League's Matteo Salvini, the Sweden Democrats said that it had "no interest" in Bannon's initiative, the Flemish Vlaams Belang called it "poorly organized", and the Alternative for Germany cited divergent views among the parties.[252] Right-wing populist parties did not achieve a surge in support in the 2019 European Parliament elections.[252] The Atlantic cited a number of factors inhibiting Bannon's project, including differing national and ideological views among the European far right and U.S.-skeptical views held by some parties of the European extreme right.[252]
Bannon supports the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a right-wing Catholic organization in Italy formerly based in what was previously Trisulti Charterhouse; Bannon drafted a leadership course curriculum for the group to train conservative Catholic political activists.[253] In 2018, Bannon announced that he planned to establish a right-wing academy on the site,[254][255] with the support of Benjamin Harnwell, a British associate of Bannon's who underwrote the project and aimed to create a "gladiator school for culture warriors".[256][257] However, in 2019, the group's rights to use the former monastery were revoked by the Italian government because it determined that the lessee Dignitatis Humanae Institute failed to meet several criteria to operate the monastery and failed in its obligation to pay a "concession fee" as well as maintenance and security expenses.[258][255]
In August 2018, Bannon met with Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, and served as informal advisor to the Bolsonaro campaign in the Brazilian presidential elections that year.[259] In February 2019, the younger Bolsonaro joined Bannon's organization the Movement as its representative in South America.[260][261] In March 2019, Bannon met with both Bolsonaros in Washington, D.C.[262]
In October 2017, after leaving the White House, Bannon met exiled Chinese billionaire businessman Guo Wengui (also known as Miles Kwok), and the pair cultivated a friendship, frequently meeting in Dallas, at Guo's apartment at the Sherry-Netherland in New York, and on Guo's yacht.[263] In 2017, Guo reportedly gave a $150,000 loan to Bannon shortly after he left the White House, and a Guo-linked company entered into a $1 million consulting contract with Bannon, beginning in August 2018.[222] In early 2020, Bannon and Guo raised hundreds of millions of dollars in a private offering for a company called GTV Media Group. In August 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that the fundraising for the company was under investigation of federal and state authorities.[264]
Guo has allowed Bannon to use one of his two private jets, and during the 2018 election campaign, Bannon flew on Guo's Bombardier Global Express to events in support of Republican congressional candidates in New Mexico and Arizona.[222] The flights were revealed in February 2020 by ProPublica.[222] Bannon made the flights under the auspices of his dark money group, Citizens of the American Republic.[222] Several campaign finance experts who spoke with ProPublica said the trips could violate federal campaign finance law, which prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions to candidates in U.S. political campaigns (including in-kind contributions such as payment for campaign-related travel).[222] Guo and Bannon denied that the travel was for campaign activity; an attorney for Bannon's group stated that the trips on the private jet were to promote Bannon's film, Trump@War.[222]
On June 3, 2020, Bannon and Guo participated in declaring a "New Federal State of China" (also called "Federal State of New China"). It was said that they would overthrow the Chinese government. In New York City, planes were seen carrying banners which said, "Congratulations to Federal State of New China!".[265]
On August 20, 2020, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed criminal charges against Stephen K. Bannon and three other men they alleged defrauded donors to a massive crowdfunding campaign that said it was raising money for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. After Bannon's arrest, Guo Wengui hurriedly cut ties with him, stressed that he was not involved in Bannon's affairs outside their shared efforts "fighting for democracy in China", and would no longer allow Bannon to continue to serve as a member of Guo Media's board of directors.[266]
In November 2020, The New York Times reported that Bannon along with Guo Wengui had been promoting Li-Meng Yan's account of COVID-19. The pair had bought Yan a plane ticket to the United States, provided her accommodation, coached her in media appearances and helped secure interviews with conservative television hosts including Tucker Carlson. Yan later said that the COVID-19 virus was artificially made, however her interview was rejected on social media as misinformation and her research rejected by scientists who said it was "based on conjecture" though filled with jargon.[267][268]
Treatment of colleagues
In an interview with Frontline, former writer for Breitbart News Ben Shapiro said that he tried to avoid interacting with Bannon due to a fear of being on his bad side. Shapiro also recalled Bannon yelling and cursing at people at Breitbart News.[269][270] Those who worked with Bannon have described him as "egomaniacal" and "purely Machiavellian".[271] Other former staffers at Breitbart who spoke to Politico said that Bannon would degrade employees by mocking their intelligence and would imply they were "expendable, low-life creatures". Several employees who left Breitbart alleged that when they attempted to find employment outside of Breitbart, Bannon attempted to sabotage them. However, other employees praised Bannon's leadership describing him as a generous, loyal, caring, and supportive. Many described Bannon as someone who would pay out of his own pocket for personal expenses.[272]
In his memoir, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner recalled having an abrasive relationship with Bannon and two occasions in which Bannon threatened him, including one in which he threatened to 'break Kushner in half' after he accused Bannon of leaking to the press.[273][274] Also in his memoir Kushner writes "Bannon single-handedly caused more problems for me than anyone else in my time in Washington. He probably leaked and lied about me more than everyone else combined. He played dirty and dragged me into the mud of the Russia investigation".[275]
He only paid part of the $850,000 legal bill charged by Davidoff, Hutcher & Citron LLP, who represented him in the case for contempt of Congress for his defiance of the January 6 committee subpoena and in the case for the "We Build the Wall" fraud scheme. The law firm sued Bannon, and in July 2023, he was ordered to pay the remaining balance.[276]
Connection to Jeffrey Epstein
According to Michael Wolff, Bannon was introduced to Epstein in 2017 and Epstein introduced Bannon to some of his friends.[277] Bannon also worked with Ehud Barak and attorney Reid Weingarten to attempt to reform Epstein's public image.[278][277] Later reports showed Bannon reportedly prepped Epstein for an interview with 60 Minutes that ultimately never occurred. Bannon confirmed that he did tape 15 hours of interviews with Epstein but denied that he was coaching him for further interviews and that the footage was for an unannounced documentary on Epstein.[279][280][281]
Social media bans
During the November 5, 2020, edition of his webcast, Bannon called for the beheadings of Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious diseases expert, and FBI director Christopher Wray. Bannon said that if it were up to him, after beheading Fauci and Wray, "I'd put the heads on pikes" and display them outside the White House "as a warning to bureaucrats" who dared oppose Trump. By the end of the day, Facebook and YouTube had deleted the video from their platforms, and Twitter had permanently banned his account for glorifying violence. Mailchimp also disabled Bannon's email newsletter.[44] The next day, Bannon was dropped by a lawyer who had been defending him against federal charges of fraud.[337]
On January 9, 2021, Rudy Giuliani appeared on War Room, accusing Democrats of stealing the recent presidential election and blaming them for the storming of the Capitol. Hours later, YouTube removed both the podcast channel and another one called "Trump at War – A Film by Stephen K. Bannon", citing a "violation of YouTube's Terms of Service".[338][339]