A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected Stephen K. Bannon's final attempt to stay free while he exhausts his legal options to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction, eliminating any chance of further delay to his four-month prison sentence scheduled to begin next month.
Bannon, a longtime ally of President Trump, was convicted in 2022 of ignoring a congressional subpoena seeking information about his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 but had been kept free during a lengthy appeals process, which ended this month when the judge over his case ordered Bannon to report to prison on July 1 after a federal appeals court upheld his conviction in May.
The three-judge appeals panel that denied Bannon's emergency motion on Thursday split 2-1, with Justice Justin R. Walker dissenting. Noting that Bannon has petitioned the Supreme Court to consider his case, Justice Walker wrote that he should remain free until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the appeal.
Mr. Bannon's lawyers have argued that his case involves important legal issues about the separation of powers. At trial, they argued that Mr. Bannon was acting on the advice of lawyers who advised him that he could ignore the subpoena under executive privilege for former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Bannon briefly served as a top political adviser to President Trump in the White House but left that position long before the attack on the Capitol.
The court wrote in its order that Bannon's appeal is unlikely to succeed, saying the judge would have to significantly bend current law to conclude that he did not intentionally thwart Congress' attempts to compel him to testify.
“We have not presented any basis for concluding that a higher court could override the established understanding of 'willfully' in the context of flouting a clear obligation to comply with a congressional subpoena,” the court wrote.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court repeatedly rejected a challenge by another Trump aide, Peter Navarro, who had sought to avoid a similar contempt finding in connection with a Jan. 6 subpoena by the House of Representatives. Navarro had sought appeal on similar grounds as Bannon.
