Former Donald Trump adviser and War Room host Steve Bannon filed an emergency motion Tuesday evening asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overrule a lower court’s order that he report to prison by July 1st.

Bannon is seeking sufficient time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary, over his contempt of Congress conviction.

He was sentenced to four months in prison for defying subpoenas from the J6 Committee.

NBC News reports:

Bannon’s attorney argued in Tuesday’s filing that his imprisonment would block him from acting as a “meaningful adviser” in the campaign leading up to the November election.

“The government seeks to imprison Mr. Bannon for the four-month period leading up to the November election, when millions of Americans look to him for information on important campaign issues,” wrote Trent McCotter, a new addition to Bannon’s legal team. “This would also effectively bar Mr. Bannon from serving as a meaningful advisor in the ongoing national campaign.”

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit last month upheld Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction, prompting the trial judge who presided over Bannon’s case to rule that he must report to prison at the end of the month.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said last week that the “original basis” for his stay of the imposition of Bannon’s sentence no longer applied after an appeals court upheld the conviction.

“There is also no denying the political realities here. Mr. Bannon is a high-profile political commentator and campaign strategist. He was prosecuted by an administration whose policies are a frequent target of Mr. Bannon’s public statements,” the motion says, according to Fox News.

Per Fox News:

The motion Tuesday comes after Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges in his New York City hush money trial and faces a sentencing hearing next month just four days before the Republican National Convention, where the GOP will likely declare him their official 2024 presidential nominee.

Bannon “intends to vigorously pursue his remaining appeals in this case and has retained experienced Supreme Court counsel,” his lawyers wrote Tuesday, asking the court to allow him to remain on release given there is “no dispute that Mr. Bannon ‘is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community if released’ —indeed, he has been out on release for years now without incident, and his ‘crime’ was non-violent.”

“Mr. Bannon faced what the Court has described as a novel scenario: Congress was pursuing documents and testimony from a former executive branch official, yet counsel for the former President himself required Mr. Bannon to protect executive privilege in responding to the subpoena,” the motion says. “Mr. Bannon followed the advice of his counsel and requested that the Committee resolve the privilege issues with the holder of that privilege, or have the matter resolved in a civil suit.”

Bannon’s lawyer at trial argued that the former adviser did not ignore the subpoena, but was still engaged in good-faith negotiations with the congressional committee when he was charged.

Read the full motion HERE.

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.


We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.