Danbury, Connecticut - Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon was released from prison Tuesday after spending nearly four months behind bars, just a week ahead of the presidential election.

The far-right strategist left a federal prison in Connecticut where he was serving time for a contempt of Congress conviction, FBI records showed.

"I'm not broken, I'm empowered," he told The New York Times outside the prison.

Bannon was convicted of defying a subpoena to testify before the congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. On that day, the 70-year-old spoke with the then-president by phone.

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Bannon said it was "1,000%" worth going to prison for refusing to testify.

"If you're not prepared to go to prison to fight for your country, you're not prepared to fight for your country," he told The Times.

When he entered prison on July 1, he defiantly said he was "proud" to serve time "if it's what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden."

One of the key characters behind Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign, Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022, but remained free while appealing his conviction.

Despite not being officially involved in the 2024 campaign, he remains an influential figure in far-right and fascist circles, both in the US and in Europe.

In 2020, he was charged with wire fraud and money laundering for taking for personal use millions of dollars contributed by donors for the construction of a border wall with Mexico.

While others were found guilty in the scheme, Trump issued a blanket pardon to Bannon before leaving office in January 2021, leading to the dismissal of the charges against him.