Government

Steve Bannon Begs Chief Justice Roberts To Keep Him Out Of The Slammer During Election

Justice may be blind. But does it have to be apolitical?

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SiriusXM’s Coverage Of The Republican National Convention Goes Gavel-to-Gavel On Thursday, July 21

(Photo by Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM) Stephen K. Bannon

Steve Bannon would like some of that two-tiered system of justice, please.

The putrefying podcaster raced to the Supreme Court this morning after the DC Circuit shrugged off his petition to stay the jail sentence pending appeal. Bannon was convicted in July of 2022 of contempt of Congress and, like his fellow scofflaw Peter Navarro, sentenced to four months in jail.

Judge Carl Nichols let him wander the streets — and pollute the airwaves! — pending appeal, on the theory that the Circuit Court might decide to overrule its own precedent. But on May 10, the appellate panel declined the invitation to discard Licavoli v. US, a 1961 case excluding advice of counsel as a defense to 2 U.S.C. § 192, the contempt of Congress statute. The judges were unconvinced by Bannon’s suggestion that they should read the minds of the Supreme Court Justices and infer from their rejection of Navarro’s appeal that they were simply champing at the bit to redefine the “willfullness” requirement. Nor were they impressed with Bannon’s argument that he’s simply too important to be sidelined during the election for doing crimes.

“As both this court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly explained, a contrary rule would contravene the text of the contempt statute and hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority,” Judge Brad Garcia wrote for the unanimous panel, which included Judges Cornelia Pillard and Justin Walker. “Because we have no basis to depart from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his convictions have merit, we affirm.”

Judge Nichols duly ordered Bannon to report to jail by July 1, and, as CNN reports, Bannon will have to report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. He’s currently facing state charges in New York for defrauding donors in a home brew border wall scheme, making him ineligible for the minimum security prison in Florida where Peter Navarro is most of the way through his stretch.

Bannon took another run at the Circuit Court two weeks ago, requesting a stay of sentence for him to seek cert from SCOTUS, and this time he managed to peel off Judge Walker, the only Trump appointee on the panel.

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“Because the Supreme Court is not bound by Licavoli, because Licavoli’s interpretation of ‘willfully’ is a close question, and because that question may well be material, Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari,” Judge Walker wrote in dissent last night. Presumably he’ll be equally solicitous of the next indigent defendant who would like a reprieve pending appeal based on the theory that the Supreme Court might overturn his case.

But the two Democratic appointees disagreed, noting that “much more than Licavoli stands between Bannon and the requested stay.”

“Indeed, the Supreme Court has interpreted Section 192 in the same way this court did in Licavoli, requiring only that a defendant act ‘deliberately and intentionally’ to be guilty of willful default,” Judges Pillard and Garcia continued.

So this morning Bannon asked Chief Justice Roberts to do him a solid. In an emergency application for continued release pending appeal, he relied heavily on Walker’s dissent, as well as the Supreme Court’s grant of a stay of sentence to former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell in 2015 before his bribery conviction was overturned. Bannon also repeated the false claim that Trump invoked executive privilege and instructed him to refuse to testify. In fact, Trump’s lawyer Justin Clark told Bannon’s lawyer Robert Costello that he did not believe Bannon was immune from subpoena and suggested that he “contact counsel for the committee to discuss it further.”

Although this pleading largely steered clear of the indignant howling about political bias which pervaded his lower court filings, Bannon concluded by implying a government plot to sideline him during the election.

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“There is also no denying the fact that the government seeks to imprison Mr. Bannon for the four-month period immediately preceding the November presidential election,” he sulks, failing to note that he was sentenced in October of 2022 and could have served his time and been out by now had he so chosen.

TLDR?: Oh, SCOTUS, I’ve seen what you’ve done for other people. Not, like, the mass of poor, criminal defendants who rot in jail for months and years pending appeal. But, you know, for politically connected Republicans like Bob McDonnell. And I want that for me! —xoxo, Stevie B

The Chief Justice has asked for a response from the government by close of business on Wednesday, June 26.

US v. Bannon [Circuit Docket, via Court Listener]
US v. Bannon [Docket via Court Listener]
US v. Bannon [SCOTUS Docket]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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