Dig way back into the recesses of your brain and you may recall something called a “Steve Bannon.” The Breitbart News guy. “Alt-right” racist extraordinaire. Former Trump Chief Strategist and advisor. Cursed countenance, with watery eyes that convey a haggard contempt.
Still not ringing a bell? Well anyway, Bannon’s house got swatted. Nobody was hurt, but heavily armed police officers surrounded and swarmed his fancy Capitol Hill townhome on Friday afternoon, according to a report from the Washington Post. The police allegedly went to Bannon’s address in response to a crisis hotline report that there was an armed man inside a residence on the 200 block of A Street NE, who had shot someone. As a result, police shut down nearby streets for about an hour.
Notably, Bannon lives across the street from the Supreme Court Building and very near the Capitol Building and Library of Congress. But early reports, including tweets from an NBC News journalist, indicated that the incident appeared to be centered on Bannon’s house alone. “The false police report to respond appears to have been to his house,” tweeted Frank Thorp V.
At first, the cops told the Post that they had encountered a possibly armed person having a mental health crisis, but there was no gun an no one hurt. A police spokesperson later said that the initial report appeared to be false, and was likely an intentional swatting, according to the Post.
In a brief interaction with an NBC News reporter, Bannon was filmed re-entering his house. In response to multiple questions, he responded only that “the police were terrific.”
In other news: Bannon is set to face trial on July 18 for his failure to cooperate with the Congressional January 6 hearings. The contempt case is far from Bannon’s first brush with the law. He was previously federally charged with defrauding campaign donors. Trump protected Bannon with a presidential pardon, but he may still face consequences in New York.