Steve Bannon threatens Dr Fauci and his family will be ‘hunted’ after midterms

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Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has issued a threat to Anthony Fauci, saying the president’s chief medical adviser and his entire family are going to “suffer” after the midterm elections next month.

“On 8 November, when we destroy the Democratic party as a national political institution and really end the regime, the hunted become the hunters. The whole Fauci family is going to be welcome to the investigations. The entire family,” Mr Bannon said on his War Room podcast on Sunday.

A clip of his podcast was shared on Twitter by attorney and analyst Ron Filipkowski.

“Remember, War Room was taken off Twitter because of comments I made about, wait for it, [FBI director] Christopher Wray and Anthony Fauci that their day was coming... they took the War Room account off Twitter. Paybacks across the board on all that, a big move,” Mr Bannon said.

His comments against Dr Fauci come just days after a federal judge in Washington last week sentenced him to four months in jail and fined him $6,500 for criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to honour a subpoena from the House’s January 6 select committee.

This is not the first time Mr Bannon has lashed out at Dr Fauci.

The director of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, who is set to step down soon, had faced a slew of attacks from Mr Bannon and several other right-wing commentators during the Covid pandemic.

In November 2020, Mr Bannon said a second term for Donald Trump should start by displaying the severed heads of Dr Fauci and Mr Wray on the White House “as a warning”.

“Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realise the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Mr Bannon had said. “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the programme or you’re gone – time to stop playing games.”

Dr Fauci has had a security detail since April 2020 amid threats from supporters of Mr Trump and far-right groups that have opposed Covid public health measures.