Steve Bannon, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump, must report to prison on July 1 unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
Steve Bannon on June 21 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his prison sentence as his appeal of a contempt of Congress conviction works its way through the court system.
“If Mr. Bannon is denied release, he will be forced to serve his prison sentence before this Court has a chance to consider a petition for a writ of certiorari, given the Court’s upcoming summer recess,” lawyers for Mr. Bannon said in the emergency motion.
Mr. Bannon 70, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump, was convicted in 2022 of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison.
He had been allowed to remain free pending an appeal, but after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in May rejected his appeal, a judge recently ordered him to report to prison on July 1.
Mr. Bannon asked the appeals court to stay the sentence, but a split panel said on Thursday that Mr. Bannon’s request “does not warrant a departure from the general rule that a defendant ’shall … be detained’ following conviction and imposition of a sentence of imprisonment.”
Defendants can remain free if they raise a “substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal [or] an order for a new trial” and Mr. Bannon had done that, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said previously. However, in light of the appeals court ruling, that was no longer the case, Judge Nichols said on June 6.
He gave Mr. Bannon leave to seek a stay of his order, which, if granted, would delay the prison sentence.
Mr. Bannon has said he was relying on counsel when he declined to cooperate with congressional subpoenas. In an emergency motion to the appeals court, his lawyers said that there is a substantial question surrounding whether people who rely on the advice of counsel can be prosecuted under a law that bars “willfully” not complying with subpoenas from the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate.
