By One of Trump’s most influential advisers in 2016 will be heading to jail on July 1. Steve Bannon was ordered to surrender to authorities and begin serving a four-month sentence in connection to a contempt of Congress conviction.
NBC News writes that federal prosecutors claimed there was “no legal basis” for a continued stay in his sentence following the federal appeals court rejecting his appeal.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to report to prison on July 1 to begin a four-month prison sentence for defying subpoenas from the Jan. 6 Committee after a higher court rejected his appeal.
Bannon was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress in July 2022 for defying the committee’s subpoenas, but his sentence had been put on hold while he appealed the case. U.S. District Judge Carl said Thursday he did not believe that the “original basis” for his stay of the imposition of Bannon’s sentence existed any longer after an appeals court upheld Bannon’s conviction. Bannon could still appeal Nichol’s ruling that he must report to prison.
Bannon was sentenced more than a year and a half ago, in October 2022, to four months behind bars, the same sentence currently being served by former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who also refused to comply with a Jan. 6 Committee subpoena.
“The defendant chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston, who now serves on special counsel Jack Smith’s team, told jurors during closing arguments in 2022.
Following the ruling, Bannon, who once ran the influential media outlet Breitbart, spoke to cameras outside of the courthouse and reiterated his intent to appeal. He also attacked top officials at the Justice Department, according to ABC News.
“All of this is about one thing. Shutting down the MAGA movement. Shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump,” Bannon said.
“There’s not a prison built or jail built that will ever shut me up,” Bannon said.
BANNON: “They’re not going to shut up Trump, they’re not going to shut up Navarro, they’re not going to shut up Bannon, and they’re not going to shut up MAGA!”
pic.twitter.com/SnlCOZVZOl— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 6, 2024
Bannon will join Peter Navarro as a Trump supporter who has been sent to prison for contempt of Congress and refusing to acknowledge the January 6 Commitee.
The New York Times reported that the Democratic-led January 6 Committee “sought to interview Mr. Navarro in part because he, along with Mr. Bannon, devised a strategy to enlist Republican allies in Congress to delay the certification of the election by repeatedly challenging electoral vote counts in battleground states. Mr. Navarro openly discussed the plan, nicknamed the Green Bay Sweep, in a memoir and in interviews.
But when the committee asked for his testimony and documents from that period, Mr. Navarro refused to engage.”
He is currently serving a four-month sentence.
The two cases perfectly exemplify the two-tiered system of justice that the Biden administration practices.
In March, the House Judiciary Committee initiated legal action against two attorneys with the aim of compelling their testimony in the panel’s investigation concerning Hunter Biden. The lawsuit claimed that Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, both affiliated with the Justice Department’s tax division, failed to adhere to subpoenas issued in the committee’s inquiry into whether the president’s son was accorded preferential treatment by the Justice Department and whether Biden misused presidential authority to hinder, obstruct, or sway investigations related to his son.
“U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee on the federal District Court in Washington, spent nearly an hour accusing Justice Department attorneys of rank hypocrisy for instructing two other lawyers in the DOJ Tax Division not to comply with the House subpoenas, wrote Politico.
“‘There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,’ Reyes said, referring to the recent imprisonment of Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. ‘And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. … And you don’t have to show up?’
‘I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up,’ but then direct current executive branch employees to take the same approach, the judge added. ‘You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant.’”
The two DOJ attorneys have yet to testify.
[Read More: Biden Ally Looks To Keep Trump Silent]
