Armed police swarm Steve Bannon's Washington DC home after hoax call

Armed police swarm Steve Bannon’s $2.35M DC home ‘while he was live on air’ after hoax caller claimed a gunman with a ‘high powered rifle’ was inside and threatening to ‘shoot everyone’

• Heavily armed police swarmed around the Capitol Hill home where former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon lives 
• Police received a false report that a man with a gun was inside and shot someone
• Streets near the Supreme Court and Capitol were shut down for about one hour prompting fears of an active shooter
• Cops had initially said they encountered someone who claimed to be armed and who was suffering from a mental health crisis
• The call was a ‘swatting’ attempt in which someone makes a false report in order to have police show up to a particular address 
• Call did not come from Bannon’s home, but the caller summoned the police to his address

Armed police swarmed Steve Bannon’s home on Friday after a hoax caller claimed there was a gunman on the loose who had shot someone inside.

Officers were spotted racing up to the house in Washington DC and shutting down the street after the alleged ‘swatting’ incident this morning.

The former White House Chief strategist was reportedly live on air when cops swooped on the property, but it is not believed he was home.

He was later seen walking up the steps to the $2.35million rowhouse with police and told reporters they had ‘been terrific’.

Steve Bannon can be seen entering his home following a hoax call that suggested there was a gunman on the loose who had shot someone inside the home. ‘The police were terrific’, he said

There was a heavy police presence on streets close to where Bannon’s home is

Heavily armed police swarmed around the Capitol Hill home where former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon lives after reports of a gunman shooting someone inside 

Officers had been hunting a man with a ‘high powered rifle’ who was threatening to ‘shoot everyone’ when they approached the building.

It was reported to have come from a tip off in an alleged ‘swatting’ attempt – when a person makes a hoax call to the cops.

The road, which is near the Supreme Court building and the Capitol, was shut down for around an hour.

Bannon, 68, was later seen walking up the stairs to his three-story home -which he has lived in for the last five years – and said the ‘police were terrific’.

A police spokesman said: ‘About 12:30 pm, police reopened the streets after determining that there was no shooting, no weapon, no threat and no victim.’

It came as a lawyer for Bannon seeks to withdraw from representing the adviser to former President Donald Trump in his criminal contempt case, citing the possibility of being called as a witness at trial, a court document on Friday showed.

Bannon was charged last year with two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by a House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Bannon has refused to provide testimony or documents, citing Trump’s claim – rejected by other courts – that the material is protected under a legal doctrine called executive privilege.

Bannon, who was former chief strategist for President Donald Trump is currently under indictment for ignoring a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. He is pictured here last month

Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty, has so far failed to get his July 18 trial dismissed or delayed. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols has scheduled a hearing in the case on Monday.

The judge in April blocked Bannon’s attempt to tell jurors that he relied on advice from lawyers when he defied the congressional subpoena, an argument known as the ‘advice of counsel’ defense.

His lawyer Robert Costello, in the court filing on Friday, said he served as ‘Bannon´s sole basis of information about the facts and the law concerning this matter’ and that while he could serve as his attorney before the trial it appeared less clear that he could represent Bannon once proceedings began.

‘Since it appears there will be a trial, and since it appears that at this point in time I might be called as a witness, I must reluctantly ask the Court to grant my request’ asking to withdraw as trial counsel, Robert Costello wrote in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Bannon, a prominent figure in right-wing media circles, was an architect of Trump’s 2016 presidential victory and served as White House chief strategist in 2017.

He was also charged in 2020 with conspiring to defraud donors as part of a private fundraising campaign promising to build Trump’s wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. His case was dropped after Trump pardoned him in his final hours in office in January 2021.

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