Bannon Directed to Report to Prison on July 1 After Defying Jan. 6 Investigation

Steve Bannon, a former top adviser to Donald Trump, has been ordered by a federal judge to report to prison by July 1 to serve a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress, the judge announced on Thursday.

This decision means that Bannon, a prominent conservative figure with influence in Trump’s circle, will likely be incarcerated during a crucial period of the presidential campaign, where former President Trump is facing off against Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington comes after a federal appeals court rejected Bannon’s attempt to overturn his conviction for defying a subpoena from a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Bannon was found guilty in 2022 of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress for his refusal to provide documents or testify to the House of Representatives committee headed by Democrats.

Bannon will be the second former high-ranking official from Trump’s administration to be imprisoned for failing to cooperate with the committee. Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser, is currently serving a four-month sentence.

Bannon had been allowed to postpone serving his sentence while awaiting the outcome of his appeal. However, prosecutors sought to revoke that delay after a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Bannon’s challenge to his conviction.

Despite pleas from Bannon’s legal team to keep him out of prison, arguing that he could still appeal to higher courts, Judge Nichols ordered him to report to prison by the designated date. Bannon has maintained that he was under the impression, based on advice from his attorney, that he was not obligated to comply with the subpoena and thus did not knowingly commit a crime.