A former adviser to former President Donald Trump has been ordered to surrender to prison by July 1 to serve a four-month sentence he received after being convicted of contempt of Congress.
However, Judge Nichols, an appointee of President Trump, also said Mr. Bannon could seek a stay of his order. If a stay is granted, that could delay the surrender date.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Bannon told reporters: “I’ve got great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.”
He also said that prosecutors would “not shut up Bannon, and they’re certainly not going to shut up MAGA,” or the Make America Great Again movement.
‘Substantial Question of Law’?
Judge Nichols previously sentenced Mr. Bannon to time in prison for violating a federal law called Section 192, which prohibits defying congressional subpoenas but allowed Mr. Bannon to remain free while he fought his conviction. He said that Mr. Bannon’s appeal “raises a substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial.”
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel in May then rejected Mr. Bannon’s arguments that he was wrongly convicted. The arguments centered in part on how Mr. Bannon was relying on advice from counsel when he defied a subpoena from a House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
The appeals court “has squarely held that ‘willfully’ in Section 192 means only that the defendant deliberately and intentionally refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, and that this exact ‘advice of counsel’ defense is no defense at all,” U.S. Circuit Judge Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote for the panel.
“There is no longer a ‘substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial,'” prosecutors said.
“That might serve a political agenda; but it would be a grave injustice,” the lawyers said.
David Schoen, one of the lawyers, told reporters after the June 6 hearing that the fundamental principle of law to be considered by the Supreme Court is how “willfully in the criminal context means that you knew you did something wrong.”
Section 192 opens up any person who is subpoenaed by Congress and “willfully makes default or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry” to be found guilty and sentenced to up to one year in prison.
“The unequivocal evidence in this case, without any dispute, is that Mr. Bannon never got the subpoena. His lawyer got the subpoena, and his lawyer told him an executive privilege has been invoked. President Trump confirmed that and his lawyer told him that when executive privilege has been invoked, you may not, as a matter of law, comply with this subpoena,” Mr. Schoen said.
Mr. Bannon offered to testify once the committee worked out the privilege matter with President Trump, but the committee opted to turn to the courts instead.
Navarro in Prison
A second former aide to President Trump, Peter Navarro, was also convicted of contempt of Congress because he would not cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee.He had maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because President Trump had invoked executive privilege, but courts rejected that argument, finding that Mr. Navarro couldn’t prove President Trump had actually invoked it.
