Reportedly, leading Trump ally Steve Bannon, who is a prominent commentator in pro-Trump and far-right circles, “may have to be” in detention on Rikers Island in New York City as his raft of legal proceedings advances.
The details came from CNN’s crime and justice journalist Katelyn Polantz, who was describing what may be necessitated in the event that Bannon is in detention in his active federal criminal case when a separate case from local New York City prosecutors heads to trial.
The federal case is on contempt of Congress allegations over Bannon’s refusal to cooperate with the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and circumstances leading up to it. He was convicted by a jury, and his conviction was recently upheld at the appeals level, followed by Bannon losing a delay that was previously holding off his already imposed sentence.
The state case deals with Bannon’s involvement in a crowdfunding scheme soliciting donations for a long sought border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. He was accused of directing some of the funds towards his personal benefit. Others involved in the operation already faced similar allegations at the federal level.
Polantz was talking about what Bannon is now facing in his federal case, in which he’s reportedly on his way to an “actual prison” as opposed to a “club fed” prison camp.
“He’s being told now by the Bureau of Prisons that he will be going to a low security prison,” said the journalist. “So he’s behind the wall is what they call it. It’s different than a camp. It has more confines for the inmates that are kept there, also violent offenders can be kept in a low security prison, like the one Bannon is going to be reporting to in just a couple of weeks in Danbury, Connecticut. But, Erin, the reason is because all of this is complicated by a case Steve Bannon is facing in New York […]. It also means that if he’s behind bars in the federal prison, whenever that case goes to trial in September, that’s when he may have to be in Rikers to attend that trial.”
