Judge orders Trump ally to report to prison
Steve Bannon, formerly the chief White House strategist for then-President Donald Trump, has been ordered by a federal judge to begin serving his four-month prison sentence for defying subpoenas from the congressional committee that investigated the 2021 US Capitol riot.
US District Court Judge Carl Nichols issued his latest order in the Bannon case on Thursday in Washington, saying the former adviser must report to prison on July 1. Bannon was originally sentenced in October 2022 for contempt of Congress, but he was granted bail to suspend his incarceration while appealing his conviction.
Federal prosecutors argued that there was no legal justification for further delaying Bannon’s imprisonment after an appellate court panel rejected his appeal in May. His lawyers sought to continue staying the sentence while they appealed his case all the way up to the US Supreme Court.
Another former senior adviser to Trump, Peter Navarro, was also sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to cooperate with the Democrat-controlled committee that investigated the Capitol riot. Navarro, a 74-year-old economist, reported to federal prison in Florida in March. He warned that his conviction could deal a “crippling blow” to America’s constitutional separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
After Thursday’s court hearing, Bannon told reporters that the cases against him and other Trump allies were part of an effort by US President Joe Biden’s administration to silence the “Make America Great Again” movement. “There’s not a prison built, or a jail built, that will ever shut me up,” he said. “All victory to MAGA. We’re gonna win this, we’re gonna win at the Supreme Court.” He added that more importantly, Trump will win back the presidency in November, and Republicans will win control of the House and Senate.
The order against Bannon comes less than one week after Trump was found guilty by a New York City jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Biden is using “third-world weaponization” of the legal system to silence his political enemies and turn people like Bannon into “political prisoners.” He added, “The country is becoming unrecognizable. This cannot continue.”
