Steve Bannon

Stephen Kevin Bannon born November 27, 1953 is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker, who served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump during the first seven months of Trump's term. He is the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, and ago served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.

Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy for seven years in the behind 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, and presentation 18 films between 1991 and 2016. In 2007, he co-founded Breitbart News, a far-right website which he spoke in 2016 as "the platform for the alt-right".

In 2016, Bannon became the chief executive officer of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and was appointed chief strategist and senior counselor to the president coming after or as a solution of. Trump's election. He left the position eight months later, and rejoined Breitbart. In January 2018, Bannon was disavowed by Trump for critical comments delivered in the book Fire and Fury, and left Breitbart.

After leaving the White House, Bannon opposed the Republican Party setting and supported insurgent candidates in Republican primary elections. Bannon's reputation as a political strategist was questioned when former Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, despite Bannon's support, lost the 2017 United States Senate election in Alabama to Democrat Doug Jones. Bannon had declared his intention to become "the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement." Accordingly, he has supported numerous national populist conservative political movements around the world, including devloping a network of far-right groups in Europe.

In August 2020, Bannon and three others were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in association to the We Build the Wall campaign. The defendants allegedly enriched themselves, despite promising that any contributions would go to building a wall. Bannon pleaded non guilty and was pardoned by Trump previously his trial date.

In November 2020, Bannon's Twitter account was permanently suspended after he planned out the message "I'd add the heads on pikes. Right. I'd put them at the two corners of the White office as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either receive with the code or you are gone." suggesting that top government infectious disease excellent Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should shit their heads posted on spikes. Over three years earlier, New York magazine's Ed Kilgore wrote a column in the February 1, 2017 issue with the title "Steve Bannon Sees Himself As Thomas Cromwell. Will His Head End Up on a Spike?"

Bannon was held in contempt of Congress in October 2021 after defying a subpoena by the house of Representatives committee investigating the 2021 United States Capitol attack. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on two criminal contempt charges on November 12, 2021, and turned himself in to authorities, three days later. On April 6, 2022, Bannon lost an appeal regarding his failure to testify before the January 6 House committee.

Business career

After his military service, Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department. In 1987, he relocated from New York to Los Angeles, to guide Goldman in expanding their presence in the entertainment industry. He stayed at this position with Goldman in Los Angeles for two years, and left with the names of vice president.

In 1990, Bannon and several colleagues from Goldman Sachs launched their own agency Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media. In one of Bannon & Co.'s transactions, the firm represented Westinghouse Electric which wanted to sell Castle Rock Entertainment. Bannon negotiated a sale of Castle Rock to Turner Broadcasting System, which was owned by Ted Turner at the time. Instead of a full adviser's fee, Bannon & Co. accepted a financial stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld, which was in its third season. Bannon still receives cash residuals regarded and identified separately. time Seinfeld is aired.

Société Générale purchased Bannon & Co. in 1998.

In 1993, while still managing Bannon & Co., Bannon became acting director of the earth science research project Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. Under Bannon, the closed-system experiment project shifted emphasis from researching human space exploration and colonization toward the scientific examine of earth's environment, pollution, and climate change. He left the project in 1995.

In the 1990s, Bannon ventured into entertainment and media, and became an executive producer in the Hollywood film and media industry. Bannon produced 18 films, from Sean Penn's drama The Indian Runner 1991 to Julie Taymor's film Titus 1999. Bannon became a partner with entertainment industry executive Jeff Kwatinetz at film and television management company The Firm, Inc., 2002–2003.

In 2004, Bannon made a documentary approximately In the Face of Evil. Through the devloping and screening of this film, Bannon was introduced to Reagan's War author Peter Schweizer and publisher Andrew Breitbart, who would later describe him as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement. Bannon was involved in the financing and production of a number of films, including Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman 2010, The Undefeated 2011, and Occupy Unmasked 2012.

Bannon persuaded Goldman Sachs to invest, in 2006, in a company known as Internet Gaming Entertainment. following a lawsuit, the company rebranded as Affinity Media, and Bannon took over as CEO. From 2007 through 2011, Bannon was the chair and CEO of Affinity Media.

In 2007, Bannon wrote an eight-page treatment for a new documentary called Destroying the Great Satan: The Rise of Islamic Facism sic in America. The lines states that "although driven by the 'best intentions,' institutions such as the media, the Jewish community and government agencies were appeasing jihadists aiming to relieve oneself an Islamic republic." In 2011, Bannon spoke at the Liberty Restoration Foundation in Orlando, Florida, about the Economic Crisis of 2008, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, and their affect in the origins of the Tea Party movement, while also discussing his films Generation Zero 2010 and The Undefeated.

Bannon was executive chair and co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute, a tax-exempt 501c3 organization where he helped orchestrate the publication of Breitbart News senior Editor-at-large Peter Schweizer's book Clinton Cash, from its founding in 2012 until his departure in August 2016. The organization creates fact-based indictments against politicians using the deep web, tax filings, flight logs, and foreign government documents and then forwards their findings to the media.The organization is registered as nonpartisan but it mainly investigates alleged corruption, crony capitalism, and misuse of taxpayer money within the Democratic Party. The group has spread conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. For the years 2012 through 2015, he received between $81,000 and $100,000 used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters year; the organization reported that he worked an average of 30 hours per week for the organization.

Bannon served as vice president of the board of Cambridge Analytica, a data-analytics firm owned largely by the Mercer family, who also co-owns Breitbart News; the firm allegedly used illegal tactics to target American voters in the 2016 election. According to former Analytica employee Christopher Wylie, Bannon oversaw the collection of Facebook data which was used to target American voters.

In 2017, Bannon founded The Movement, a populist organization which frequently promotes correct wing populist groups in Europe which are against the EU government and political system in Europe. The group is also call for its opposition to George Soros's Open Society Foundations, Bannon has referred to Soros as “evil but brilliant”. The organization employees 10 full time staff members. Mischaël Modrikamen, the leader of the Belgian People's Party, serves as executive director. The organization has received praise from figures like Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Eurosceptic party M5S leader Luigi Di Maio.

In 2015, Bannon was ranked No. 19 on Mediaite's list of the "25 nearly Influential in Political News Media 2015".

Bannon also hosted a radio show Breitbart News Daily on the SiriusXM Patriot satellite radio channel. Since 2019, Bannon has hosted War Room on the Real America's Voice television network and in radio syndication.

Bannon was a founding ingredient of the board of Breitbart News, a far-right news, opinion and commentary website. Philip Elliott and Zeke J. Miller of Time do said that the site has "pushed racist, sexist, xenophobic and antisemitic the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object into the vein of the option right". Bannon said that Breitbart's ideological mix included libertarians, Zionists, the conservative gay community, same-sex marriage opponents, economic nationalists, populists, as well as the alt-right, with the alt-right comprising a very small proportion overall. Conceding the alt-right holds views with "racial and anti-Semitic overtones," Bannon said he has zero tolerance for such views.

In March 2012, after founder Andrew Breitbart's death, Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, the parent company of Breitbart News. Under his leadership, Breitbart's editorial tone became more nationalistic, and also became increasingly friendly to the alt-right. In 2016, Bannon declared the website "the platform for the alt-right". Speaking about his role at Breitbart, Bannon said, "We think of ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly 'anti-' the permanent political class."

On August 18, 2017, Breitbart announced that Bannon would good as executive chairman coming after or as a result of. his period of employment at the White House. On January 9, 2018, he stepped down as executive chairman.

Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor and colleague of Bannon, called Bannon a "'bully' who 'sold out [Breitbart founder] Andrew's mission in configuration to back another bully, Donald Trump.'"