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Bannon asks Supreme Court to remain free during appeal of contempt

A man holds a sign that reads “Lock Them Up” as attorney Matthew Evan Corcoran, left, and Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump, depart federal court on June 6 in Washington, D.C. Bannon has been ordered to begin serving his four-month prison sentence on July 1 for two counts of contempt of Congress after failing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Andrew Harnik)
By Alan Feuer and Zach Montague New York Times

WASHINGTON – Steve Bannon made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday to remain free while he tries to overturn his conviction on contempt of Congress charges, seeking to stave off a four-month prison sentence that is set to start next month.

Bannon’s emergency petition to Chief Justice John Roberts came less than a day after a federal appeals court in Washington rejected a similar request.

Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was convicted in 2022 after ignoring a congressional subpoena seeking information about his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Even though he was sentenced to four months in prison, he was initially allowed to remain free while he pursued a lengthy appeals process. That came to an end this month when the judge overseeing his case, Carl J. Nichols, ordered Bannon to report to prison July 1 after a federal appeals court upheld his contempt conviction in May.

The three-judge appeals panel that denied Bannon’s emergency motion to remain free Thursday night was split 2-1, with Judge Justin R. Walker dissenting. Walker noted that Bannon had indicated he would ask the Supreme Court to reconsider his request to stay enforcement of the sentence and wrote that he should remain free until the justices decided whether to hear his appeal.

In his petition to Roberts, Bannon’s lawyers said his original case raised substantial questions of law, a requirement to permit him to stay out of jail while he appeals his conviction.

One of them, the lawyers wrote, focused on whether Bannon had willfully ignored the committee’s subpoena or merely followed the advice of his lawyer not to comply with it.

At trial, the lawyers had argued that Bannon was acting on the advice of lawyers who had counseled him that he could disregard the subpoena under the protections of the executive privilege Trump enjoyed. Bannon had served briefly as Trump’s top political adviser in the White House but left the position long before the attack on the Capitol.

The lawyers also told Roberts that if Bannon’s emergency petition to remain free was denied, he would almost certainly serve his entire sentence before he could ask the full Supreme Court to hear the merits of his appeal. The court’s current term ends next week.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court repeatedly rejected a request by Peter Navarro, another close ally of Trump, to avoid an identical sentence for contempt related to a subpoena from the House committee investigating Jan. 6. Navarro, who began serving his federal prison sentence in March, had sought to appeal his case on grounds similar to Bannon’s.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.