Donald Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon (Photo by Alex Kent / AFP) (Photo by ALEX KENT/AFP via Getty Images)
Following an appellate denial of Steve Bannon’s bid to reverse his contempt of Congress convictions, the podcaster and former White House chief strategist to Donald Trump must begin serving a four-month sentence in federal prison, prosecutors demanded on Tuesday.
The three-page filing from U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb urged U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, to lift a stay of Bannon’s sentence now that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has rejected appellate arguments that the judge previously found had raised “substantial questions” that could very well lead to a reversal of the July 2022 convictions.
Now that judges on the D.C. Circuit sent Bannon’s appeal packing, the prosecutors said in straightforward fashion that nothing stands in the way of requiring Bannon to report to prison.
“On May 10, 2024, a unanimous panel of the D.C. Circuit affirmed defendant’s conviction,” the filing said. “The D.C. Circuit rejected defendant’s appeal on all grounds, including the primary argument on appeal: the requisite mental state required for a contempt of Congress violation.”
“Consequently, there is no longer a ‘substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial,”” prosecutors added. “Under these circumstances, the Court ‘shall order’ defendant ‘be detained’ […] so the stay of sentence must be lifted.”
Last Friday, the D.C. Circuit was clear that Bannon’s stonewalling of the Jan. 6 Committee and claim that his lawyer told him to do so was “no defense at all”:
In September 2021, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol issued a subpoena to appellant Stephen Bannon to testify and provide documents. Bannon did not comply—he knew what the subpoena required but did not appear or provide a single document. Bannon was later convicted of violating the contempt of Congress statute, 2 U.S.C. § 192, which criminalizes “willfully” failing to respond to a congressional subpoena. Bannon insists that “willfully” should be interpreted to require bad faith and argues that his noncompliance does not qualify because his lawyer advised him not to respond to the subpoena. This court, however, has squarely held that “willfully” in Section 192 means only that the defendant deliberately and intentionally refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, and that this exact “advice of counsel” defense is no defense at all.
In a footnote, prosecutors made sure to note that incarcerated former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro’s sentence stay efforts flopped at the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court.
“Analogously, a stay of sentence in United States v. Peter Navarro, 22-cr-200 (APM), another contempt of Congress case, was denied by the District Court and the D.C. Circuit,” the motion said. “The Supreme Court likewise denied a successive application for release pending appeal, albeit on procedural grounds.”
Prosecutors told Nichols that even if Bannon asks for a rehearing en banc, by the full D.C. Circuit, the stay of his sentence should be lifted, since his chances of appellate success are close to zero, as seen in the Navarro case.
In an attached proposed order for the judge to sign, prosecutors want Nichols to tell the Bureau of Prisons to “set a date” for Bannon to report to prison.
Read the motion to lift the Bannon sentence stay here.
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