Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP

Steve Bannon showed up Tuesday from four months in federal prison. He was tanned, supposedly “empowered,” and clearly eager to help Donald Trump lie about election results again if he lost.

Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress after ignoring a Jan. 6 House committee subpoena. The former Trump strategist — who claimed that “executive privilege” allowed him to resign from the committee in 2021 even though he last worked at the White House in 2017 — likely could have avoided prison time had he negotiated with the panel or shown up to make his Fifth Amendment rights apply.

But he presented himself on his War room show and in a press conference on Tuesday as a freedom fighter.

“If you are not willing to be thrown in prison by this armed justice system, then you are not willing to stand up and fight for your country,” Bannon said after completing his sentence at a low-security prison in Connecticut.

Bannon insisted in his news conference that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump and said he would again urge Trump to declare victory on election night, even if the results were again unclear and ballots were still being counted.

The War room The host said Trump, who falsely claimed victory after 2 a.m. on election night four years ago, had only made a mistake by failing to lie about the results at “11 a.m.” This year, Bannon said, “If the votes are coming in the way they look like, he should step in and let the American people know exactly what’s going on, not leave people in the dark like they did in 2020.”

Bannon insisted he pushed Trump to declare victory in 2020 because “the Democratic Party would steal the election with illegal mail on the ballot.”

But that’s not what Bannon said in 2020. In an audio recording of a meeting on October 31, 2020, which I reported on in 2022, Bannon said that Trump planned to declare victory on election night even if he lost.

“Trump will simply declare victory,” Bannon said. “Right? He’ll declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s the winner. He’ll just say he’s the winner.”

Bannon stated quite clearly at the time that Trump intended to take advantage perception that he came out on top, even if the reality was different. Because Democrats were more likely to vote by mail, counting their ballots would take longer. That would put them at a “natural disadvantage,” Bannon said at the time. “And Trump will take advantage of it. That is our strategy. He will declare himself the winner.”

Special counsel Jack Smith cited Bannon’s statement in an Oct. 2 filing as one of several pieces of evidence that Trump had formulated plans before Election Day 2020 to use a “false declaration of victory” if he lost to try to steal the election .

In 2024, Democrats will be more likely to vote by mail again. In Pennsylvania, Democrats are reportedly twice as likely to vote by mail as Republicans. Trump may have another chance to use the “red mirage” to convince his supporters that he is being deceived.

Bannon may be on a break between prison sentences. He will go on trial in New York in December for allegedly defrauding donors to a charity that claimed to be raising private money to help build Trump’s promised wall along the Mexican border.

But until then, Bannon will have a chance to “go to the mat” once again, as he put it, to help Trump return to the White House.