Steve Bannon must report to prison on July 1 after Supreme Court rejects last-ditch appeal
Former Trump adviser was held in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas from January 6 committee
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon must report to prison on July 1 after the Supreme Court rejected his attempts to stall his four-month sentence.
The nation’s highest court on Friday denied the far-right podcaster’s emergency request to stay out of jail while he continues to appeal.
Bannon was found in contempt of Congress after defying subpoenas to give evidence to the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
The former White House adviser’s sentence mirrors the one handed down to another former Trump aide, Peter Navarro, who became the first Trumpworld figure to go to jail in connection with January 6.
Navarro had similarly refused to comply with a subpoena from the congressional committee that investigated the 2021 attack, and the responses from Trump and his allies.
Bannon was initially sentenced in October 2022, but the sentence was put on hold pending his appeal.
That conviction was upheld last month, and a federal judge who ordered him to prison earlier this month agreed with prosecutors who argued that there was “no legal basis” to let him avoid it.
Several House Republicans — who have tried to rewrite the narrative of the Capitol attack and undermine the convictions of hundreds of people in connection with the assault — have pressed federal courts to intervene.
This week, House Speaker Mike Johnson — whom Bannon once called a “revolting loser” — and other GOP leadership agreed to file briefs with a federal appeals court to boost Bannon’s attempts to overturn his conviction.
Johnson said House leadership was preparing to “withdraw” the committee’s findings, claiming that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “abused her authority” when organizing its membership.
At least one House Republican filed a brief directly to the Supreme Court, claiming that the House select committee “improperly asserted to the House that Mr. Bannon refused to appear for a duly executed deposition.”
“As such, this Court should conclude that the entire prosecutorial process against the applicant was tainted and must be dismissed as a matter of law,” according to Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk.
Loudermilk’s petition was filed by a lawyer with the Trump-aligned America First Legal Foundation, the legal group formed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
Last week, another group of House Republicans introduced a resolution to try to rescind Bannon’s subpoena and his contempt of Congress recommendation.
“This is about shutting down the MAGA movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump,” Bannon told reporters outside a federal courthouse in Washington this month after a judge upheld his conviction.
“Not only are we winning, we are going to prevail,” he said. “There’s not a prison built or jail built that will shut me up.”
Bannon will now join half a dozen Trump allies who have served time for obstruction, campaign finance violations, fraud, and other charges surrounding the former president’s 2016 campaign, his real estate empire and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
On his Truth Social earlier this month, Trump called Bannon’s detention a “total and complete American tragedy” and demanded that members of the January 6 committee be prosecuted.