Bannon Begs Supreme Court to Toss Contempt Conviction
The former Trump White House adviser is once again asking the court for help.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Steve Bannon is asking the Supreme Court to overturn his 2022 conviction for defying a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 Committee.
Lawyers for Bannon, the MAGA podcaster and former Trump White House adviser, petitioned the court Friday to toss his conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress. They argue that the subpoena was not lawfully issued because the Jan. 6 committee “did not follow the rules imposed by the House Resolution creating the committee,” and that ignoring the subpoena wasn’t a crime because Bannon “relied in good faith” on his attorney’s opinion that he could do so.
Bannon’s attorney said Donald Trump had invoked executive privilege, even though Bannon had last worked in the White House in August 2017. The three-member District of Columbia Circuit didn’t buy the executive privilege argument, writing that what Bannon could offer the committee was “not even arguably subject to executive privilege.”
The full D.C. circuit denied Bannon’s request to reconsider. Four of the 11 judges, including three Trump appointees, dissented.
In February, Bannon pleaded guilty in a fraud case alleging that he misled donors who gave money toward building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. He avoided prison time.
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This is not the first time Bannon has gone to the Supreme Court for help over his conviction, for which he served four months in a Connecticut prison before being released about a week before last year’s presidential election.
A few days before he was scheduled to show up, the Supreme Court rejected his bid to delay his sentence. Bannon responded by claiming that he was actually “proud to go to prison” to “stand up to tyranny.”
Bannon may not be the last Trump ally to seek the Supreme Court’s aid with overturning a contempt of Congress conviction.
First-term Trump adviser Peter Navarro also served a four-month sentence last year for refusing to respond to a House Jan. 6 Committee subpoena, even though he had no issue talking about his and Bannon’s plans to overturn the 2020 election with the Daily Beast. Navarro, currently a White House trade adviser, has appealed his conviction to the D.C. Circuit Court.
Bannon is represented by Trent McCotter of Boyden Gray PLLC.
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In a separate legal matter resolved earlier this year, Bannon was able to avoid prison time. In February, he pleaded guilty to one state felony count of defrauding donors to the construction of a private U.S.-Mexico border wall. Under the deal, Bannon was given a three-year conditional discharge and was spared from having to pay any restitution.
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