By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s former top adviser Steve Bannon must report to prison by July 1 to begin serving a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress, a federal judge said on Thursday.
The decision means Bannon, a right-wing media firebrand who retains influence in Trump’s inner circle, will likely spend a crucial part of the US presidential campaign behind bars as former President Trump faces a democratic election. President Joe Biden in the November 5 elections.
The order from U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington came after a federal appeals court last month rejected Bannon’s bid to overturn his conviction for rejecting a subpoena from a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol 2021 examined.
Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse that he would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, describing his prosecution as politically motivated.
“This is all about one thing: shutting down the MAGA movement,” Bannon said, referring to Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Bannon was convicted in 2022 of two felony counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents or testify before the Democratic-led House committee.
Bannon will be the second former top Trump White House official to go to prison for refusing to cooperate with the committee. Peter Navarro, a former trade consultant, currently serves a four-month term.
Bannon was allowed to avoid serving the sentence during his appeal. Prosecutors moved to end that delay after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Bannon’s challenge to his conviction.
Bannon’s attorneys urged Nichols to free Bannon, arguing he could still appeal to the full D.C. Circuit Court or the U.S. Supreme Court. Bannon has argued that he was told by his attorney that he did not have to comply with the subpoena and therefore had no intention of committing a crime.
But Nichols said there was no justification for keeping Bannon free after the appeals court ruling.
“I can no longer conclude that his appeal raises substantial questions of law” that would likely overturn his conviction, Nichols said.
Bannon, who was no longer working in the White House at the time, was part of a group of Trump advisers who tried to derail the formal certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
The congressional panel said he may have been aware of events planned for Jan. 6, 2021, when a group of Trump supporters breached the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)
