Bannon sentenced to four months in prison

WASHINGTON>> Steve Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump who aided in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, was sentenced Friday to four months in prison for disobeying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Bannon, 68, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress this summer after Judge Carl J. Nichols rejected an array of arguments offered by Bannon’s defense team, including that he was protected by executive privilege from being compelled to testify.

“Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes,” said Nichols, a Trump appointee, who also imposed a fine of $6,500 on Bannon. Bannon will remain free pending his appeal.

The sentence, coming a year after Bannon was held in contempt by the House, is two months short of what federal prosecutors had requested this week.

Shortly after, the committee formally issued its subpoena to Trump requesting that he sit for a deposition and turn over documents next month.

The government had accused Bannon, the onetime editor of right-wing news outlet Breitbart, of having “pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” from the moment he received the subpoena seeking information about his knowledge of Trump’s efforts to reverse his electoral defeat.

In a contentious exchange with the defense team before announcing a sentence, Nichols said Bannon had shown “no remorse for his actions” and had yet to “demonstrate he has any intention of complying with the subpoena.”

Nichols dismissed Bannon’s claims that his refusal to testify was protected by executive privilege. But he also cited Bannon’s belated effort to reach an agreement with the committee, his service in the Navy, his lack of a criminal history and the unsettled judicial status of executive privilege as factors against a longer sentence.

The chaotic scene outside U.S. District Court was emblematic of the push-and-shove rancor Bannon has evoked since becoming a fixture of Trump’s political circle seven years ago.

After leaving court, he stood before the cameras to declare that the idea he saw himself as above the law was “an absolute and total lie” — as protesters repeatedly bellowed, “Traitor!” through bullhorns a few feet away.

As the throng pressed Bannon against his black SUV, he briefly lingered inside the half-open rear door, taking in the spectacle with a wry smile before taking off

annon approached his sentencing with defiance. He told reporters that he viewed President Joe Biden as “illegitimate” as he entered the court, flanked by his lawyers.

He went on to claim that Democrats would face their “judgment day” in the coming midterm elections and urged all within earshot to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.

The government argued for the maximum penalty of six months and a fine of $200,000. J.P. Cooney, the lead prosecutor, said Bannon had “thumbed his nose” at American democracy — and flouted the basic responsibilities incurred by witnesses who appeared at the courthouse every day.

“He showed his contempt for the criminal justice system, his contempt for the law and his contempt for Congress,” Cooney said, accusing Bannon of never “lifting a finger” to comply with his legal obligations to produce evidence — or simply show up when summoned to assert his right not to testify.

Bannon’s lead lawyer, David I. Schoen, who represented Trump during his second impeachment trial, reiterated many of the same themes he raised then. He cast Bannon as a courageous defender of executive authority rather than someone who simply did not want to obey a lawful legislative summons.

“Never at any time did Mr. Bannon believe in any way, shape or form that he was acting in any way that was unlawful or against the law,” Schoen said in a rambling hour-long speech in which he invoked the writings of James Madison.

Bannon and his lawyers quietly reached out to congressional staff members on the eve of the trial with a belated offer of testimony if the government dropped the charges. It was rejected.

Schoen, whom Bannon once mocked on his radio show, recommended that he not spend any time in jail and instead receive probation.