This isn't the end of Bannon's legal troubles
Bannon has more legal problems on the horizon. He’s scheduled to stand trial in November of next year for allegedly defrauding donors who were giving money to build a wall at the southern U.S. border. He’s pleaded not guilty in that case, which was brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York.
Bannon had faced similar charges from federal prosecutors related to the same scheme in August of 2020. He pleaded not guilty and was pardoned by Trump in the hours before he left office.
Prosecutors asked for 6-month sentence, said Bannon 'expressed no remorse'
The Justice Department last week urged the judge to hand down a sentence of six months, which prosecutors said was at the high end of the sentencing guidelines, given his conduct throughout the case.
“The nature and circumstances of the offense support a top-end guidelines sentence because a person could have shown no greater contempt than the Defendant did in his defiance of the committee’s subpoena," their filing said.
“The defendant has expressed no remorse for his conduct and attacked others at every turn,” the prosecutors added. They also asked that the judge fine Bannon $200,000 for his confuct.
“From the time he was initially subpoenaed, the defendant has shown that his true reasons for total noncompliance have nothing to do with his purported respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, or executive privilege, and everything to do with his personal disdain for the members of Congress sitting on the committee and their effort to investigate the attack on our country’s peaceful transfer of power,” the prosecutors wrote.
Bannon’s lawyers argued that he should get only probation. Bannon, they said, “has not been convicted of a violent crime, he has no other criminal convictions, and he has strong ties to the D.C. area.” They also asked that Bannon be allowed to remain free until his lawyers are able to appeal the sentence.
Bannon faces sentencing in contempt of Congress case
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is likely facing at least a month behind bars when he’s sentenced Friday in a Washington, D.C., federal court for criminal contempt of Congress.
Bannon, 68, was convicted in July on two contempt of Congress charges for ignoring subpoenas from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. Prosecutors have asked Judge Carl Nichols to sentence him to six months behind bars — half of the maximum of their proposed concurrent sentence for the two counts — and fine him $200,000 for “his sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress.”
Bannon’s attorneys countered that his conviction was “unconstitutional” and asked the judge to sentence him to probation, which would be less than the statutory minimum of one month.