WASHINGTON — Former President Trump adviser Steve Bannon He has until Monday to report to prison after the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute motion to stay a four-month sentence for failing to comply with a subpoena from the House of Representatives Jan. 6 committee.
Bannon was convicted of two contempt of Congress in Washington in July 2022, almost two years ago, and sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols had reserved his sentence while he pursued an appeal against the conviction, which was dismissed in May. Judge Nichols then ordered Bannon to report to prison by July 1, saying there was no basis to continue postponing the sentence. The appeals court then rejected Bannon’s appeal against the sentence, leaving only the Supreme Court to help him avoid incarceration.
Bannon was found in contempt of Congress for ignoring the January 6th Commission’s requests for documents and testimony as part of its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and remain in power until the January 6th, 2021, storming of the Capitol. Bannon’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that he was relying on the advice of his legal counsel and was waiting for the issue of executive privilege to be resolved. But as federal prosecutors noted in a 2022 sentencing memo, there was no operational claim of executive privilege because Bannon was a member of the Trump administration several years prior, not during the period the January 6th Commission is investigating.
Peter Navarro, a former adviser to Trump who served four months in federal prison on the same charges, reported to prison in March to serve out his sentence.
Bannon, 70, has already been assigned inmate number 05635-509 by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.