'Biggest Trump fan': How Bannon says he helped former Mafia hitman get early prison release
In 1998, Vito Guzzo, a reputed member of the Colombo crime family, pleaded guilty to five murders and several other violent crimes.
In court, he described his crimes without emotion “I killed Ralph Sciulla by shooting him in the head,” he told the judge, reading from a piece of paper. “I killed Anthony Mesi by shooting him. I shot John Borrelli.”
Guzzo served 26 years of his 38-year sentence and was freed earlier this year after striking up a friendship with one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies, Steven Bannon.
Men from seemingly different worlds, Bannon met Guzzo at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut while serving a four-month sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. Guzzo found himself in Bannon’s cellblock: after completing most of his sentence in higher security federal prisons, he moved to the lower-security prison in Danbury after years of good behavior.
According to Bannon, Guzzo knew exactly who he was and his role as a central player in Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Bannon told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, for his upcoming book, "Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America," that Guzzo is “the single biggest Trump fan you’ve ever seen.” He said Guzzo “could literally quote” Trump’s speeches.
The Bannon-Guzzo relationship was first reported in an excerpt of the book in The Atlantic magazine.
Bannon told Karl he worked to help Guzzo get an early release from prison under the First Step Act, a federal law signed by Trump in 2018 to reform federal prisons and sentencing. Shortly after Guzzo was released, Bannon showed Karl a video of the convicted killer walking out of the prison to greet his friends waiting to pick him up.
"That guy is so impressive," Bannon told Karl. "Look at that guy's tracksuit; look at the shoes; look at the hair….these guys amaze me."
Once skeptical of the First Step Act –– Bannon told Karl that his time in prison also changed his view on the legislation, the most significant bi-partisan bill signed by President Trump during first term. Bannon frequently clashed with Jared Kushner – Trump’s son-in-law and one of the chief proponents of the legislation – and long disagreed with Trump for embracing what he saw as a soft-on-crime position. Prison, Karl reported, changed Bannon’s view.
“Jared was a genius about this. It is our ticket to a massive coalition,” said Bannon. “Remember, in Spartacus, the slave revolt starts in a prison, right?”
Editor's note: Profanity included in the book has been altered for this account and some text has been edited for style. "Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America," by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl is being published Oct. 28 and is available for preorder at Penguin Random House.
