NEW YORK – After spending four months in federal prison for defying a congressional subpoena, conservative strategist Steve Bannon had a message Tuesday for prosecutors in the cases against him and President-elect Donald Trump.

“Wait. The hunted are about to become the hunters,” Bannon said outside a New York court, where he will now face a state conspiracy trial next month.

He entered a car that was waiting for him without giving more details about what “the hunters” intend to do.

The longtime Trump ally’s latest trial is set to begin Dec. 9 but could be postponed after a hearing Monday, in the same Manhattan court where the past and next president was convicted in his hush money case. On the other hand, a judge on Tuesday delayed a key failure in the hush money case for at least a week as prosecutors mull how to proceed in light of Trump’s impending presidency.

Bannon described Trump’s election victory as a “verdict on this whole legal war.” Voters, he said, “rejected what is happening in this court.”

The former Trump General Director of the 2016 campaign and White House strategist He is accused of conspiring to defraud people who contributed money to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy and money laundering in the case, which reflects an aborted case federal prosecutor’s office. That was in its early stages when Trump pardoned Bannon in 2021, during the last hours of the Republican’s first presidential term.

The following year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James revived the case in state court, where presidential pardons do not apply. They are both Democrats.

Bannon and others involved with a charity called WeBuildTheWall Inc. told the public and donors that every dollar they donated would go toward building the wall, prosecutors say. But, they say, Bannon helped divert at least $140,000 of the nonprofit’s money to its president in exchange for a secret salary.

Bannon’s indictment accuses him primarily of facilitating the payments, not receiving them himself, although it suggests he passed on only a portion of the WeBuildTheWall money that came under his control.

Prosecutors said in court Tuesday that some of the money was used to pay Bannon’s credit card bill and that they would like to be able to present evidence of those transactions at his trial.

“He saw an opportunity to use that money to further his political agenda and he did so,” said prosecutor Jeffrey Levinson.

Defense attorney John Carman said Bannon was simply reimbursed for expenses he incurred while traveling to the border to help WeBuildTheWall’s cause. Bannon chaired the group’s advisory board.

“They are trying to smear Mr. Bannon by showing that he accepted money,” Carman said. “The money he was taking was money he was entitled to receive.”

He asked Judge April Newbauer to delay the trial, saying the defense would need to gather financial and nonprofit experts to refute the evidence prosecutors are trying to present.

Newbauer scheduled a hearing for Monday to decide whether to allow that evidence. He said he would decide later whether to postpone the trial.

Bannon, 70, appeared calm during Tuesday’s hearing, which came less than two weeks after he was released from federal prison in Connecticut. a jury had convicted accused him of contempt of Congress for not giving a statement and not providing documents for the agency’s investigation into the Attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Bannon, who had called himself a “political prisoner,” is appealing his conviction.

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Associated Press writer David R. Martin contributed.