Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
Steve Bannon, onetime Breitbart honcho, onetime Trump campaign manager, onetime White House aide, current operator of a right-wing conspiracy podcast lie factory, has been ordered to jail by the judge in his contempt of Congress case. Bannon must report to an as yet unnamed federal lockup by July 1st to begin serving a four-month sentence.
Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to honor a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House Committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol. Bannon had made no secret of his presence in a so-called war room in the Warwick Hotel in Washington on Jan. 5, along with such luminaries as Rudy Giuliani and the head of the One Percenters militia group, and it was reported that the Jan. 6 Committee had questions about what transpired in the so-called war room in the days preceding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a violent mob of Trump supporters.
Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress in 2022 and last month lost his appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in a 3-0 decision rejected his appeal of his conviction. Bannon announced at the time of his loss that his lawyer would file an en banc appeal to the full D.C. Circuit Court, and to the U.S. Supreme Court if that fails.
The judge in Bannon’s case, Carl J. Nichols, took note of the loss of appeals to the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court by Peter Navarro, who was convicted of the same contempt of Congress offense that Bannon was found guilty of. Navarro is currently serving a four-month sentence in a Miami prison. Judge Nichols was appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump, as was one of the three judges voting in the unanimous D.C. Circuit Court that rejected Bannon’s appeal.
Bannon also faces trial in the same Manhattan courthouse in which Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts last week. Bannon has been charged with fraud for taking money from contributions made to a phony foundation he ran that promised to help build Trump’s wall on the border with Mexico. The charges allege that Bannon and a partner converted more than 1 million dollars in contributions to their own use for luxury car payments, private jets, hotel rooms and expensive restaurant meals.
Bannon faced similar federal charges in 2020 but was pardoned before he could face trial by Trump in January of 2021 just before he left office. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought a six-count indictment against Bannon for money laundering and conspiracy to defraud in 2022. The judge in Bannon’s Manhattan case is Juan Merchan, the same judge who presided over the trial of Donald Trump last month.
Outside the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last month, Bannon told reporters “There’s nothing that can shut me up, there’s not a prison built or a jail built that will shut me up. All victory to MAGA!”
Well, at least Bannon won’t have to worry about remembering to leave the toilet seat up—or down, as the case may be—for his fellow inmates when he begins his sentence on July 1st. Stainless steel toilets in federal prisons don’t have seats. Federal prisons don’t have podcast studios, either.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
