WASHINGTON — Stephen K. Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who supported the effort to overturn the 2020 election, was sentenced to four months in prison on Friday for failing to comply with a subpoena appeared in court from the House investigative committee on January 6, 2021, attacking the Capitol.
Mr. Bannon, 68 years old, is guilty among two counts of contempt of Congress this summer after Judge Carl J. Nichols rejected a series of arguments made by Mr. Bannon’s defense team, including that he was protected by executive privilege from forced to testify.
“Others must be prevented from committing the same crime,” said Judge Nichols, a Trump appointee who also imposed a $6,500 fine on Mr. Mr. Bannon will remain free pending an appeal.
The verdict, coming a year after Mr. Bannon kept in contempt House of Representatives, two months shorter than federal prosecutors requested this week. They accused Mr Bannon, the one-time editor of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart, of “pursuing a strategy of defiance and contempt” from the moment he received a subpoena to seek information on understanding his knowledge of Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his electoral defeat.
In a controversial exchange with the defense team before sentencing, Judge Nichols said Mr Bannon had shown “no remorse for his actions” and had yet to “demonstrate that he had any obey any subpoenas.”
Judge Nichols rejected Mr. Bannon’s claims that his refusal to testify was protected by executive privilege. But he also cited Mr. Bannon’s belated attempt to strike a deal with the commission, his service in the Navy, his lack of criminal history and the unsettled judicial status over executive privilege as being among the top reasons. factor against a longer sentence.
The chaotic scene outside the Federal District Court is a symbol of the jostling and shoving that Mr. Bannon has evoked since becoming a fixture in Mr. Trump’s political circles seven years ago. After leaving court, he stood in front of the camera to declare that the idea that he considered himself above the law was “an absolute and complete lie” – as protesters repeatedly shouted, ” Traitor!” past bulls a few feet away.
As the crowd pressed Mr. Bannon into his black SUV, he lingered inside the half-opened back door, gazing at the scene with a wry smile before taking off.
Mr. Bannon, a fast-talking provocateur who used his daily internet radio broadcast to skewer the government for prosecuting him, approached his sentence with defiance. He told reporters he considered President Biden “illegitimate” as he entered the courthouse, surrounded by lawyers.
He went on to claim that Democrats will face their “judgment day” in the upcoming midterm elections and called on all within earshot to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.
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The government argued for a maximum penalty of six months and a fine of $200,000. JP Cooney, the lead prosecutor, said Mr. Bannon had “picked his nose” at American democracy – and brushed off the fundamental responsibilities that witnesses who appear in court every day have to bear.
“He showed contempt for the criminal justice system, contempt for the law, and contempt for Congress,” Cooney said, accusing Bannon of never “walking around” in compliance with his legal obligations. to give evidence – or simply appear when summoned to assert his or her right not to testify.
Mr. Bannon’s lead attorney, David I. Schoen, who represented Mr. Trump in the second impeachment trial, repeated many of the same topics he raised later. He chose Mr. Bannon as a courageous defender of the executive power over someone who simply did not want to obey the lawful summons of the legislature.
“Never did Mr. Bannon believe in any way, form or form that he was acting in any way that was unlawful or against the law,” Schoen said in an hour-long speech. in which he cited James Madison’s writings, then turned to a former Trump attorney as “a thug” who tore him apart.
Mr. Bannon and his lawyers had quietly contacted congressional staffers ahead of the trial, with a belated offer if the government dropped the charges. It was rejected.
Mr Schoen, whom Mr. Bannon once mocked on his radio show, recommended that he not spend any time in jail and would instead receive a suspended sentence. He argued that the Justice Department had refuse to file an indictment against two other former Trump aides who also ignored subpoenas from the committee: Mark Meadows, his last chief of staff, and Dan Scavino Jr., the deputy chief of staff overseeing operations Trump’s social media.
Mr. Schoen also said that Mr. Bannon’s every action was guided by the advice of his lawyers.
Mr. Bannon is not the only former Trump aide accused of disobeying a subpoena from the committee: Peter Navarro, a former White House trade adviser, was indicted in June for contempt of State charges. festival.
He is scheduled to appear in court in Washington next month.
Members of the House’s January 6 committee, who see Bannon as a central figure in several schemes to keep Mr. Trump in power illegally, said the sentence would discourage those others ignore legislative subpoenas.
This is not the first time Bannon, who has clashed with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and other aides during his brief and tumultuous tenure as senior White House adviser, has had to face consideration before a federal court.
In August 2020, Mr. Bannon and three associates were accused of defrauding donors of more than a million dollars as part of an online fundraising scheme linked to efforts to build a border wall with Mexico. of Mr. Trump.
After Mr. Trump lost the election, Mr. Bannon began lobbying for a pardon, even as he attended meetings to discuss how to overturn the election. Mr. Trump pardoned him just hours before leaving office.
However, Mr. Bannon face separate charges in New York for her role in the fundraising project. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged him with fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy, a case largely mirroring the case that was pardoned.
