Steve Bannon’s Contempt Of Congress Conviction Upheld By Appeals Court

Ted Johnson

May 10, 2024 at 10:55 a.m.·1 min read

Steve Bannon’s conviction for failure to comply with a congressional subpoena was upheld by a three-judge federal appeals court today, raising the prospect that the podcaster and right-wing provocateur will have to serve a four-month sentence.

The appeals court decision, made by appointees of Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama, was unanimous.

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The judges rejected Bannon’s defense — that he was relying on the advice of counsel in ignoring a subpoena from the January 6th Committee.

“As both this court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly explained, a contrary rule would contravene the text of the contempt statute and hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority,” the judges wrote. “Because we have no basis to depart from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his convictions have merit, we affirm.”

The January 6 committee had asked for documents and testimony from Bannon in 2021, but he never complied. The panel was looking at his contact with Trump during the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol.

In their opinion, the judges noted that Bannon “had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day.” Bannon a former top adviser to Trump, but left the White House in 2017 after about seven months. The judges also cited reports that Bannon “participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”

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