After a guilty verdict at his contempt of Congress trial earlier in the year, Steve Bannon, a far-right commentator and former presidential advisor to Trump, was sentenced by a federal judge to four months in prison.
The House select Committee investigating the attack on U.S. Capitol Building subpoenaed Bannon for informationIn September 2021, regarding his communications with former President Donald Trump during the period leading up to the January 6th attack. Also, any knowledge he may have of possible coordination between far-right extremist groups that were involved in violence that day.
Bannon, who had served briefly as Trump’s chief White House strategist, had predicted on his podcast the day before the attack that “all hell” was going to “break loose”Congress met to verify the results of President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election. “It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack,” Bannon added.
Bannon was served with the subpoena in September 2021. However, he refused to answer the committee by the deadline of October 7th 2021. his indictment from the Department of Justice (DOJ) noted. After that deadline passed, Bannon’s lawyer sent a letter to the committee, telling them that he wouldn’t comply and citing the dubious argument that doing so would violate Trump’s executive privilege — even though he was not an official adviser to Trump beyond August 2017, more than three years before the Capitol attack.
The committee Voted to declare Bannon in contempt for Congress, and the whole House of Representatives voted in favor of that resolutionThe DOJ was founded exactly one year ago. The DOJ formally indicted Bannon a month later, a jury deliberated for less than three hoursBefore a guilty verdict was rendered in July.
Before Friday’s sentencing Bannon repeatedly spouted false and incendiary rhetoric about the 2020 election, claiming that Biden is an “illegitimate” president and that Democrats will face their “judgment day” in the midterms.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Bannon had “pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” after receiving the subpoena. Judge Carl Nichols was the District Judge of the U.S.District Court in the District of Columbia and agreed with this sentiment. stating in his order that “others must be deterred from committing similar crimes.”
Bannon’s lawyers have indicated that he plans to appeal the verdict. Nichols determined that Bannon can remain out of prison pending the appeals process.
Bannon also faces legal issues unrelated the January 6 attack. He has been charged for defrauding donorsHe and others were given large sums of money to fund a project that involved building a wall three miles long at the U.S.-Mexico frontier. In that case, the prosecution alleges that Bannon used millions of dollars from the campaign for his personal use.
