A federal judge on Thursday ordered Stephen K. Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, to turn himself in by July 1 to begin serving a four-month prison sentence for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress in October 2022 for refusing to testify to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Judge Carl J. Nichols, who presided over the case, allowed Mr. Bannon to be released pending appeal, but last month a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that Mr. Bannon’s conviction for ignoring a House committee’s demands for testimony was valid, and he lost his first trial.
Judge Nichols said he considered the commission’s ruling meant that Bannon could no longer validly continue to receive a deferred sentence.
“I feel that my original rationale for advocating for Mr. Bannon to remain in office no longer exists,” he said.
Bannon’s legal team has promised to ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider the sentence. Judge Nicholls said Bannon would have to begin serving his sentence within four weeks unless the Court of Appeal heard the case and issued its own ruling suspending the sentence.
Judge Nichols’ ruling appeared to surprise Bannon’s lawyer, David Schon, who approached the podium after the sentence was handed down and began arguing with the judge.
Judge Nichols reprimanded him.
“One of the things you learn as a lawyer is not to stand up and yell when the judge issues a ruling,” the judge retorted.
Mr. Bannon was similarly defiant during his brief trial two summers ago, both in and out of court disputing charges that he had defied the House committee, at one point delivering a speech pledging a “medieval” approach to the prosecutors who had indicted him.
He remained adamant after Thursday’s hearing, vowing to challenge his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Bannon argued that the case against him was an attack on Trump and his supporters.
“This is about silencing the MAGA movement, this is about silencing grassroots conservatives, this is about silencing President Trump,” he said, adding, “Nothing can silence me.”
Bannon’s legal woes could continue after or even during his time in prison.
Months after his conviction in Washington for contempt of Congress, state prosecutors in Manhattan accused Mr. Bannon of misusing funds he raised for a group that supported Mr. Trump’s border wall. In the final hours of his 2021 term, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Bannon in a separate federal trial focused on similar charges.
Bannon’s fraud trial is scheduled to take place later this year in the Manhattan court where Trump was recently convicted of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened his 2016 presidential bid.
Another former Trump aide is already serving a prison sentence for refusing to participate in a House committee’s wide-ranging investigation into Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.
In March, Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser to President Trump, was found guilty by a jury of contempt of Congress for ignoring one of the committee’s subpoenas and reported to a federal prison in Miami to begin serving a four-month sentence.
