House GOP leaders go to bat for Bannon in bid to keep him out of jail for defying Jan. 6 panel
Former Donald Trump adviser and far-right streamer Steve Bannon is getting help from House Republicans as he tries to avoid jail time.
At least one House Republican has gone directly to the Supreme Court to support Bannon’s last-ditch appeal to avoid having to turn himself into federal prison authorities on July 1.
House Speaker Mike Johnson — whom Bannon once called a “revolting loser” — also is working with GOP leadership to file a brief to a federal appeals court to undermine Bannon’s conviction for contempt of Congress, after he defied a subpoena from a congressional committee investigating January 6.
Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer agreed to “withdraw” findings from the House select committee, believing it was “wrongfully” conducted and that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “abused her authority” when organizing its membership.
“Thus, the Select Committee improperly asserted to the House that Mr. Bannon refused to appear for a duly executed deposition,” Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court to support the former White House aide.
“As such, this Court should conclude that the entire prosecutorial process against the applicant was tainted and must be dismissed as a matter of law,” he argued.
Loudermilk’s petition was filed by a lawyer with the Trump-aligned America First Legal Foundation, the legal group formed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
Last week, another group of House Republicans introduced a resolution to try to rescind Bannon’s subpoena and his contempt of Congress recommendation.
Bannon has repeatedly lashed out at Johnson for failing to sufficiently defend the former president in his criminal hush money case and in legislative debates, including calling Johnson a “disgusting, revolting loser” and a “bald-faced” liar.
The former White House adviser’s four-month prison sentence mirrors the one handed down to former Trump aide Peter Navarro, who also refused to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.
Bannon was initially sentenced in October 2022, but the sentence was put on hold pending his appeal. That conviction was upheld last month, and a federal judge who ordered him to prison earlier this month agreed with prosecutors who argued that there was “no legal basis” to let him avoid it.
Bannon was found in contempt of Congress in two instances: refusing to sit for an interview with the January 6 committee, and then refusing to provide documents about his efforts supporting Trump’s campaign to overturn the former president’s election loss in 2020.
A final committee report found that the Trump campaign supported a “multi-part conspiracy” to reverse his election loss, while then-President Trump failed to stop a mob of his supporters from launching an assault inside the halls of Congress to do it by force.
Trump is criminally charged in Georgia and in Washington, DC for his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Bannon is also due in a Manhattan courtroom on September 23 for a trial on money laundering and conspiracy charges.
That presiding judge was initially New York Justice Juan Merchan, who recently presided over Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. Merchan stepped aside this month due to a scheduling conflict.
