Prosecutors want Steve Bannon to serve 6 months for defying Jan. 6 subpoena

Federal prosecutors on Monday asked a judge to sentence the extreme-right-wing Trump loyalist Steve Bannon to six months in prison for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The feds also want the former White House adviser to pay a $200,000 fine for what it called “sustained (and) bad-faith contempt of Congress.”

“The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6 ... assaulted the rule of law upon which this country was built and through which it endures,” the Department of Justice said in a sharply-worded 24-page sentencing brief. “By flouting the Select Committee’s subpoena and its authority, (Bannon) exacerbated that assault.”

Steve Bannon (Theodore Parisienne/)

Bannon’s lawyer, David Schoen, countered that his client should face only probation, citing “outdated case law.” He also asked the sentence be temporarily halted pending an appeal, which he predicted Bannon would win. Bannon’s legal team did acknowledge on Monday that their client has “strong political views.”

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols is expected to sentence Bannon on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition and another for refusing to provide documents.

The Justice Department push comes shortly after the committee took the extraordinary step last week of subpoenaing Trump himself, which members said was necessary to get the full story of what happened that day. It’s unclear how Trump will respond to the summons, but a refusal to comply could open up a similar path in court — though holding a former president in contempt would be an unprecedented and fraught process.

Bannon — who was federally charged with fraud in a “build the wall” scam in 2020 but got pardoned by Trump — was convicted in the subpoena refusal after a four-day trial in July. Outside the courthouse, he compared the trial to a battle and said, “We’re not going to lose this war,” then referred to members of the committee as “gutless.”

It was not the only time Bannon disparaged the committee in “exaggerated and sometimes violent” language in news conferences and on his “War Room” podcast, prosecutors wrote.

“The defendant’s statements prove that his contempt was not aimed at protecting executive privilege or the Constitution, rather it was aimed at undermining the Committee’s efforts to investigate an historic attack on government,” federal attorneys said in court documents. “To this day, he continues to unlawfully withhold documents and testimony that stand to help the Committee’s authorized investigation to get to the bottom of what led to January 6 and ascertain what steps must be taken to ensure that it never happens again. That cannot be tolerated.”