Steve Bannon is heading to JAIL as appeals court upholds his conviction for defying the January 6 committee subpoena
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, will go to prison after an appeals court upheld his conviction for contempt of Congress.
He was given a four-month prison sentence in 2022 for refusing to testify in a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
But the case was stayed when he appealed, saying he had acted in good faith by following legal advice.
The decision was made on Friday.
“Bannon insists that ‘intentional’ should be interpreted as bad faith and argues that his noncompliance is ineligible because his attorney advised him not to respond to the subpoena,” Judge Bradley Garcia wrote.
Bannon speaks to the media as he arrives at federal court to be sentenced on October 21, 2022 in Washington, DC
A US federal appeals court on Friday upheld Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from a congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
But, he continued, the court’s position is that “intentional” only means intentional.
“Because we have no basis for departing from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his conviction have any merit, we affirm.”
Bannon was among a series of Trump allies who refused to comply with a subpoena to testify before the House of Representatives investigation into the January 6 violence, claiming executive privilege-protected conversations and other information with regarding the presidency.
He was held in contempt by the House of Representatives in October 2021 on largely party-line votes.
And Judge Carl Nichols said he had no grounds to claim privilege since he had left the White House years before the events of January 6.
“Some of the information requested in the subpoena is information that would not have made any conceivable claim of executive privilege,” Nichols said.
Bannon joined the Trump campaign in 2016 and went to the White House as chief strategist.
But he lost a power struggle and was soon deposed. He has since become a major voice in Trump’s MAGA movement.
Peter Navarro, another Trump ally, checked himself into a federal prison in Miami last month, becoming the first former White House official to be jailed for contempt of Congress.
Bannon is seen in the White House State Dining Room with President Donald Trump and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk in February 2017