Steve Bannon didn’t get the answer he was hoping for. On Friday, the United States Supreme Court said he must report to prison and begin serving his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress beginning Monday, despite an 11th-hour request by the former Trump administration advisor to allow him to remain free while his case is on appeal.
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The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a last-ditch effort by former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon to avoid reporting to jail next week while he appeals his conviction for defying a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Bannon, 70, is due to begin serving a four-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress on Monday.
The Supreme Court in its unsigned, one-sentence order Friday said Bannon’s “application for release pending appeal presented to The Chief Justice [John Roberts] and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
The decision comes after an appeals court also rejected a similar request earlier in June, as my colleague Bob Hoge wrote:
A federal appeals court in Washington D.C. shot down Trump ally and host of the podcast “War Room” Steve Bannon’s bid to delay his prison term while he appeals his conviction for contempt of Congress. Unless the former Trump advisor is able to convince the Supreme Court to step in, he must report to prison on July 1 to begin serving his four-month sentence.
Bannon’s “crimes” consist of refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas regarding the J6 protests and subsequently being held in contempt for it.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, earlier this month granted prosecutors’ request to send Bannon to prison after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld his conviction.
Bannon’s lawyers had asked the appeals court to allow him to remain free while he continues to fight the conviction all the way up to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
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The Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, argued before SCOTUS that Bannon’s attorneys needed to show that his case would be overturned on appeal. This may have been compelling enough for the justices to reject the request.
Before then, though, Bannon has quite a packed schedule, according to this agenda shared by an X user:
Does that say he’ll be broadcasting his podcast on Monday from prison? It’s not completely clear from the way it’s written.
One broadcast we do know is confirmed is that Bannon is set to appear on ABC’s “This Week” in the morning, in an interview with Jonathan Karl scheduled to air on Sunday:
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In the preview clip, Karl asked Bannon how he feels about the fact that he has to report to jail on Monday. Bannon railed against the political prosecution against him for refusing to speak to the January 6th Committee, calling himself a “political prisoner,” while managing to find the silver lining:
I’m a political prisoner. I feel great about it.
…
My voice will not be suppressed when I am there. I’m a political prisoner of Nancy Pelosi and Merrick Garland. If it took me going to prison to finally get the House to start to move, to start to delegitimize the illegitimate J6 Committee, then hey, guess what, my going to prison is worth it.
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Speaker Johnson, House Republicans to File Legal Brief Supporting Bannon Appeal
Conservative author Carol Swain wishes him the best of luck, on a clip of his final podcast episode before prison Friday. She added a phrase that will resonate with many–whatever their opinion of Bannon:
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