A federal appeals courtroom on Thursday rejected Stephen Ok. Bannon’s last-ditch bid to stay free whereas he exhausts his authorized choices to overturn his conviction for contempt of Congress, leaving little probability that he can additional delay a four-month jail sentence that’s set to start out subsequent month.
Mr. Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, was convicted in 2022 after ignoring a congressional subpoena in search of details about his function within the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol, however he had been allowed to stay free whereas he pursued a prolonged appeals course of. That got here to an finish this month when the choose overseeing his case ordered Mr. Bannon to report back to jail on July 1 after a federal appeals courtroom upheld his conviction in Could.
The three-judge appeals panel that denied Mr. Bannon’s emergency movement on Thursday was break up, 2 to 1, with Choose Justin R. Walker dissenting. Choose Walker famous that Mr. Bannon was petitioning the Supreme Court docket to contemplate his case and wrote that he ought to stay free till it decides whether or not to listen to his attraction.
Mr. Bannon’s attorneys have argued that his case includes vital authorized questions surrounding the separation of powers. At trial, they argued that Mr. Bannon was performing on the recommendation of attorneys who recommended him that he might disregard the subpoena underneath former President Donald J. Trump’s govt privilege. Mr. Bannon had served briefly as Mr. Trump’s high political adviser within the White Home however had left the place lengthy earlier than the assault on the Capitol.
Within the order, the courtroom wrote that Mr. Bannon’s attraction was unlikely to succeed, as judges must considerably bend the regulation as written to conclude that he had not deliberately dismissed Congress’s makes an attempt to get his testimony.
“He supplies no foundation to conclude {that a} greater courtroom is prone to upend the established understanding of ‘willfully’ within the context of contempt of a transparent obligation to reply to congressional subpoenas,” the courtroom wrote.
Earlier this 12 months, the Supreme Court docket repeatedly rejected a request by Peter Navarro, one other shut ally of Mr. Trump, to keep away from an similar sentence for contempt associated to a subpoena from the Home’s Jan. 6 committee. Mr. Navarro had sought to attraction his case on grounds comparable to Mr. Bannon’s.
