Bannon Ordered to Prison for Defying Jan. 6 Probe

(Getty Images)

Steve Bannon, a former top adviser to Donald Trump, must report to prison by July 1 to serve a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress, a federal judge said Thursday.

The decision means Bannon, a conservative media firebrand who maintains influence in Trump’s orbit, will likely be behind bars for a critical stretch of the presidential campaign as former President Trump faces Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election.

The order by 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 spurning a subpoena from a congressional panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Bannon was convicted in 2022 of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents or testify to the Democratic-led House of Representatives committee.

Bannon will be the second former top official from Trump’s White House to go to prison for refusing to cooperate with the committee. Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser, is currently serving a four-month term.

Bannon was allowed to avoid serving the sentence during his appeal. Prosecutors moved to end that reprieve after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rebuffed Bannon’s challenge to his conviction.

Bannon’s lawyers urged Nichols to keep Bannon free, arguing he can still appeal to the full D.C. Circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court. Bannon has argued that he was advised by his lawyer that he did not have to comply with the subpoena and therefore did not intend to commit a crime.