NEW YORK (AP) — After spending four months in federal prison for defying a congressional subpoena, conservative strategist Steve Bannon sent 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 court in New York, where he now faces a state conspiracy trial as soon as next month.

He got into a waiting car without elaborating on what the “hunters” intended to do.

The Trump ally’s latest trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 9 — but could be delayed after a hearing Monday — in the same Manhattan court where the former and incoming president was convicted in his hush money case. Separately, a judge on Tuesday postponed a key decision on the money quiet for at least a week while prosecutors consider how to proceed in light of Trump’s impending presidency.

Bannon considered Trump’s election victory a “verdict on the whole law.” Voters, he said, “rejected what is happening in this court.”

Former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and White House Strategist is accused of conspiring to defraud people who contributed money to build a US-Mexico border wall.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy and money laundering in the case, which reflect an abortion federal prosecution. That was in its early stages when Trump pardoned Bannon in 2021, in the final 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. Both are democrats.

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

Bannon’s indictment mostly accuses him of facilitating the payments, not receiving them himself, though it suggests he only funneled some of the money to WeBuildTheWall that came under his control.

Prosecutors told a court on Tuesday that some of the money was used to pay Bannon’s credit card bill, and they want to be able to present evidence of those transactions at his trial.

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

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

“They’re trying to smear Mr. Bannon by making it look like he took money,” Carman said. “The money he was taking was money he was entitled to take.”

He asked Judge April Newbauer to delay the trial, saying the defense should line up financial and nonprofit experts to rebut evidence prosecutors are trying to introduce.

Newbauer has scheduled a hearing Monday to decide whether to allow that evidence. She said she would decide later whether to delay the trial.

Bannon, 70, appeared at ease during Tuesday’s hearing, which came less than two weeks after he was released from a federal prison in Connecticut. A jury had convict him in contempt of Congress for failing to testify and provide documents for the body’s investigation into Attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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

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Associated Press reporter David R. Martin contributed.