Steve Bannon deserves six-month sentence for ‘defiance and contempt’, says DOJ

Former Trump White House aide turned right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon deserves a six-month custodial sentence for having pursued a “bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” after receiving a House January 6 committee subpoena, the Department of Justice has said.

In a sentencing memorandum filed before US District Judge Carl Nichols on Monday, Bannon’s attorneys asked the judge to let the ex-Breitbart News executive off with probation and put that light sentence on hold while Bannon appeals the guilty verdict a Washington, DC jury handed down against him on 22 July.

But in their own filing, prosecutors said Bannon should be hit with the maximum sentence recommended under federal guidelines, six months in custody of the Bureau of Prisons “for his sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress” when he appears for his sentencing hearing on Friday.

The Justice Department also asked Judge Nichols to impose a $200,000 fine because Bannon refused to cooperate with a pre-sentencing probe into his finances.

“The factual record in this case is replete with proof that with respect to the Committee’s subpoena, the Defendant consistently acted in bad faith and with the purpose of frustrating the Committee’s work,” wrote District of Columbia US Attorney Matthew Graves and Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section prosecutors JP Cooney and Amanda Vaughn.

The 24-page memorandum recounts the history of how Bannon ended up becoming the first person to be convicted of criminal contempt of Congress in decades after he refused to comply with a 23 September 2021 subpoena commanding him to produce documents and appear to give evidence in a 7 October 2021 deposition with the select committee.

Prosecutors noted that Bannon’s initial reaction to the subpoena was not to begin collecting documents, but instead to direct his attorney to “began calling around to identify a lawyer for former President Trump to make an assertion of executive privilege” even though he was “a private citizen who had not worked at the White House for years” and the subpoena “sought records and information wholly unrelated to the Defendant’s tenure there”.

They also pointed out that Bannon has continued to “exploit his notoriety” — including through his popular podcast, War Room, to “display to the public ... a total disregard for government processes and the law”.

“Through his public platforms, the Defendant has used hyperbolic and sometimes violent rhetoric to disparage the Committee’s investigation, personally attack the Committee’s members, and ridicule the criminal justice system,” prosecutors wrote, adding that Mr Bannon’s numerous public utterances show his actions were “aimed at undermining the Committee’s efforts to investigate an historic attack on government”.

“Rather than respect the criminal justice process and participate meaningfully and seriously in the courtroom defense of his case, for the Defendant, ‘going on offense’ meant resorting to name calling, mimicry, and menacing rhetoric aimed at the Committee’s investigation and its membership,” they said.

Prosectors said the six-month sentence requested, rather than the month-long mandatory minimum sentence, is appropriate because Bannon has still refused to produce any documents or answer questions more than a year after the subpoena was served on him.

Continuing, they said Bannon’s refusal to testify should be treated the same as failing to appear as a witness in a felony criminal prosecution, and stressed that the seriousness of the investigation he refused to cooperate with makes his conduct more deserving of a harsher punishment.

“From the time he was initially subpoenaed, the Defendant has shown that his true reasons for total noncompliance have nothing to do with his purported respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, or executive privilege, and everything to do with his personal disdain for the members of Congress sitting on the Committee and their effort to investigate the attack on our country’s peaceful transfer of power,” they wrote, adding later that his contempt “was directed at a congressional committee convened to investigate a violent attack on the United States Capitol—the worst such assault since a foreign military descended upon the Capitol in 1814—and an unprecedented effort to reverse a presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power”.

“The Defendant’s abject refusal to heed the Committee’s subpoena, under the circumstances with which this country is confronted, could not be more serious,” they said.

Prosecutors also argued that Judge Nichols should take into account Bannon’s decision to “[leverage] his media platform to mock members of the Committee through offensive name calling, deride the Committee’s investigation through rhetoric that risks inspiring violence, and ridicule the criminal justice system through hyperbole”.

“The Defendant is entitled to his views and to express them vociferously; there is nothing criminal about the Defendant’s opinions or his expression of those opinions. But this Court may—and should— consider the Defendant’s out-of-court statements to ascertain his motive, evaluate his intent, and measure the degree of his contempt, including appraising his overall disdain and disrespect for the rule of law and the investigative and criminal justice processes that are crucial to maintaining a peaceful, lawful, and orderly society,” they said.

They added that Bannon’s statements should be seen as “powerful evidence of the extent of the Defendant’s criminal contempt and demonstrate a pattern of disrespect for lawful authority” and noted that he has “continued to show his disdain for the lawful processes of our government system” by refusing to cooperate with the presentencing financial investigation.

“The Defendant’s contempt for Congress and its lawful authority continues to this day, and it was not an aberration. He has consistently and thoroughly opted for fealty to a personal agenda, rather than fealty to the rule of law and the basic obligations of citizenship in an orderly democratic society,” they said. “The sentence this Court imposes must address the Defendant’s belief that he is above the law and processes to which his fellow citizens regularly submit”.