Former prime Trump White Home advisor Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to 4 months in jail for defying a subpoena from the congressional probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
A U.S. District decide additionally fined Bannon $6,500. However he dominated that Bannon is not going to need to serve the sentence till an anticipated attraction performs out.
Each the jail time period and positive got here in under the sentence really helpful by federal prosecutors.
The continuing makes Bannon one of many highest-profile figures to be sentenced to jail on expenses associated to the revolt.
Prosecutors needed the court docket to condemn Bannon to 6 months in jail — the highest finish of the federal sentencing pointers vary — and the utmost positive of $200,000.
A right-wing media determine and onetime shut ally of former President Donald Trump, Bannon “constantly acted in unhealthy religion” as he tried to impede the Home choose committee’s investigation, prosecutors argued.
Bannon had requested federal Choose Carl Nichols for a sentence of probation. His legal professionals additionally argued that the court docket ought to delay any sentence imposed till an appeals court docket might hear the case.
However Nichols dominated throughout the sentencing listening to that the prison statute requires him to condemn Bannon to at the very least one month in jail.
The decide additionally agreed with prosecutors that Bannon has “not expressed regret and has attacked the choose committee at each flip.”
Bannon declined to talk on his personal behalf when given the chance, telling the decide, “My legal professionals have spoken for me, your honor.”
Bannon’s sentencing got here one yr to the day for the reason that House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to adjust to a Home choose committee’s subpoena for paperwork and testimony. Bannon was indicted in November on two prison counts and convicted after a federal trial in July.
Bannon’s lawyer had argued the subpoena would violate Trump’s govt privilege, the presidential energy to withhold sure info from the general public.
However Bannon reversed course days earlier than his trial, saying he was prepared to testify as a result of Trump had agreed to waive his govt privilege declare.
Prosecutors referred to as {that a} stunt. In a court docket submitting Monday, they wrote that after Bannon’s gambit didn’t delay the trial, “he by no means made any additional try to adjust to the subpoena—persevering with as much as this present day.”
Attorneys for Bannon argued partly that Bannon ought to obtain a light-weight sentence as a result of he was merely following his lawyer’s recommendation when he defied the choose committee’s subpoena.
“The information of this case present that Mr. Bannon’s conduct was primarily based on his good-faith reliance on his lawyer’s recommendation,” the defendant’s attorneys wrote in a court docket submitting this week.
However the Justice Division prosecutors stated Bannon “pursued a bad-faith technique of defiance and contempt” from “the second” he was served the subpoena.
“An individual might have proven no better contempt than the Defendant did in his defiance of the Committee’s subpoena,” they instructed the court docket.
“The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6 didn’t simply assault a constructing—they assaulted the rule of regulation upon which this nation was constructed and thru which it endures. By flouting the Choose Committee’s subpoena and its authority, the Defendant exacerbated that assault,” their memo stated.
That is growing information. Please test again for updates.
