A federal appeals court docket on Thursday rejected Stephen Ok. Bannon’s last-ditch bid to stay free whereas he exhausts his authorized choices to overturn his conviction for contempt of Congress, leaving little probability that he can additional delay a four-month jail sentence that’s set to start out subsequent month.
Mr. Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, was convicted in 2022 after ignoring a congressional subpoena searching for details about his position within the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol, however he had been allowed to stay free whereas he pursued a prolonged appeals course of. That got here to an finish this month when the choose overseeing his case ordered Mr. Bannon to report back to jail on July 1 after a federal appeals court docket upheld his conviction in Could.
The three-judge appeals panel that denied Mr. Bannon’s emergency movement on Thursday was break up, 2 to 1, with Decide Justin R. Walker dissenting. Decide Walker famous that Mr. Bannon was petitioning the Supreme Courtroom to think about his case and wrote that he ought to stay free till it decides whether or not to listen to his attraction.
Mr. Bannon’s legal professionals have argued that his case entails essential authorized questions surrounding the separation of powers. At trial, they argued that Mr. Bannon was appearing on the recommendation of legal professionals who endorsed him that he might disregard the subpoena beneath former President Donald J. Trump’s government privilege. Mr. Bannon had served briefly as Mr. Trump’s high political adviser within the White Home however had left the place lengthy earlier than the assault on the Capitol.
Within the order, the court docket wrote that Mr. Bannon’s attraction was unlikely to succeed, as judges must considerably bend the regulation as written to conclude that he had not deliberately dismissed Congress’s makes an attempt to get his testimony.
“He supplies no foundation to conclude {that a} larger court docket is prone to upend the established understanding of ‘willfully’ within the context of contempt of a transparent obligation to answer congressional subpoenas,” the court docket wrote.
Earlier this 12 months, the Supreme Courtroom repeatedly rejected a request by Peter Navarro, one other shut ally of Mr. Trump, to keep away from an similar sentence for contempt associated to a subpoena from the Home’s Jan. 6 committee. Mr. Navarro had sought to attraction his case on grounds much like Mr. Bannon’s.
