A federal judge on June 6 ordered podcaster Steve Bannon to report to federal prison by the first of July to serve out his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
US District Judge Carl Nichols granted a request from the Justice Department to order Bannon to prison after a 3-judge appellate court upheld his conviction last month. However, Bannon’s attorneys are expected to seek a delay of his surrender by requesting a stay of Judge Nichols’ order.
Bannon told reporters after the June 6 hearing that he would fight his conviction “all the way to the Supreme Court” and declared that no prison would ever “shut me up.”
Bannon, who was fired from the Trump White House in 2017, was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt after he refused to provide documents to the select committee investigating the January 6 riot and declined to sit for a deposition.
The defense argued at trial that Bannon was still engaging in negotiations with the January 6 committee at the time he was charged with contempt of Congress and thus was not defying the subpoena.
Bannon claimed at the time that he had acted on the advice of his attorney who told him that the committee’s subpoena was invalid because a lawyer for Donald Trump would not be permitted in the room and Bannon would be unable to determine what documents he could provide or what testimony he could give since the former president had asserted executive privilege.
Judge Nichols, a Trump appointee, initially allowed Bannon to stay out of prison during his appeal, believing that the defense raised substantial legal questions.
However, during the June 6 hearing, the judge said the circumstances had changed and the original basis for allowing Bannon to remain free no longer existed now that the appellate panel ruled that the defense’s legal challenges lacked merit.
Bannon could seek a hearing in front of the full Appeals Court for the District of Columbia or appeal to the Supreme Court. However, prosecutor John Crabb told Judge Nichols that any further appeal was unlikely to succeed.
Bannon also faces criminal charges of money laundering, fraud, and conspiracy in New York for allegedly scamming donors to a private Build the Wall effort, with the trial tentatively set to begin at the end of September.
The podcaster pleaded not guilty to the charges.
