Steve Bannon Didn't Predict Obama Officials Would Be Jailed

21st August 2020

Steve Bannon Didn't Predict Obama Officials Would Be Jailed

The statement in question from Bannon is not genuine (Getty Images)

The Claim

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon predicted that multiple members of US President Obama’s administration, and possibly Obama himself, would be in prison by the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.

News posted on

Emerging story

Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart News, who served as US President Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist, was arrested on August 20, 2020, on charges that he defrauded donors to a “We Build the Wall” fund-raising campaign. Soon after his arrest, claims on social media, particularly Twitter, circulated that Bannon had ironically predicted that Obama’s administration would be in prison by the end of Trump’s first term, not himself.

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar’s investigation into this claim reveals it to be false. The statement in question from Bannon is not genuine, and it is likely that the misinformation about his words has only spread because of the irony at their opposite coming to pass. The original quote comes from a Steve Bannon Facebook page that has no connection to Bannon himself, who has his own, unrelated Facebook page at Facebook.com/SteveKBannon.