Jeanine Pirro is fighting to clear Steve Bannon’s criminal record.
The Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for D.C., 74, signed a Justice Department motion on Monday seeking to erase Bannon’s criminal conviction for ignoring a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee.
In the two-page motion, filed without the signature of any career prosecutors, Pirro asked District Judge Carl Nichols to dismiss the indictment the DOJ brought against Bannon, a former Trump adviser, in 2021.
“The government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice. Defendant Bannon does not oppose this motion,” wrote Pirro, a former TV judge and Fox News host who was appointed as D.C.’s top prosecutor last year.
Nichols, a Trump appointee, presided over the 2022 jury trial that led to the MAGA podcaster’s conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress. Bannon, 72, finished serving a four-month sentence at a federal prison in October 2024.
Lawmakers on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack had sought to question Bannon about President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results and his contacts with organizers of the “Save America” rally that preceded the attack.
But the election conspiracy theorist defied the committee’s subpoena, prompting nine Republicans to join all House Democrats to vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, after which federal prosecutors filed charges.
Bannon has petitioned the Supreme Court to toss his conviction, arguing that the Jan. 6 committee did not lawfully issue the subpoena and that he “relied in good faith” on his attorney’s opinion that he could ignore the subpoena.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Monday that the DOJ told the Supreme Court that Bannon’s conviction should be vacated, attaching a brief from Solicitor General John Sauer.
“Under the leadership of Attorney General Bondi, this Department will continue to undo the prior administration’s weaponization of the justice system,” he wrote on X.
If Nichols is receptive to Pirro’s motion and dismisses the conviction, Bannon’s Supreme Court proceedings would likely come to a close, Politico reported.
Pirro’s motion comes as Bannon, who continues to falsely claim that Trump won the 2020 election, finds himself in fresh trouble after bombshell documents detailed his chummy relationship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein’s association with Bannon had been well documented, but the new files released by the DOJ suggest the relationship between the two men was more expansive than previously known.
Last week, however, Trump lavished praise on Bannon and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro—who was similarly convicted of defying the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena—in a Truth Social post.
“Two very good guys who were treated so unfairly by Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump, 79, wrote. “But now, they are bigger than ever!!!”
