Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, on Monday received a Supreme Courtroom order that’s anticipated to result in the dismissal of his felony conviction for refusing to testify to Congress.
Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the Home committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
The transfer frees a trial decide to behave on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “within the pursuits of justice.”
The dismissal could be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month jail time period after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court docket in Washington had upheld the conviction.
The justices additionally issued an analogous order within the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump final yr.
Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal jail after a jury convicted him of bribery and tried extortion in 2022. The excessive court docket order permits a decrease court docket to think about dismissing his indictment.
The Justice Division introduced the case in opposition to Bannon throughout Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, nevertheless it modified course after Trump took workplace once more final yr.
Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s declare of government privilege. However the Home panel and the Justice Division contended such a declare was doubtful as a result of Trump had fired Bannon from the White Home in 2017 and Bannon was thus a non-public citizen when he was consulting with the then-president within the run-up to the Capitol riot.
Bannon individually has pleaded responsible in a New York state court docket to defrauding donors to a non-public effort to construct a wall on the U.S. southern border, as a part of a plea deal that allowed him to keep away from jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Courtroom motion.