The Supreme Court on Monday cleared a path for Stephen K. Bannon’s effort, backed by the Justice Department, to dismiss his conviction for defying a congressional subpoena related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
In a brief, unsigned order Monday morning, the court vacated a judgment by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding Bannon’s conviction. The high court sent the case back to the appeals court for reconsideration in light of a motion to dismiss that the Justice Department filed two months ago.
Bannon, an influential right-wing podcaster and former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, spent four months in prison in 2024 after a jury found him guilty on two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress. Bannon had refused to respond to demands for testimony and documents by a House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol, the jury found.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2024 upheld the convictions, and the full appeals court later declined to rehear the case. In October, Bannon appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court had previously denied his request to postpone his prison sentence pending his appeal.
Bannon’s most recent petition to the Supreme Court argued that he was following the advice of his attorney in refusing to cooperate with the congressional subpoena. He also says he believed that records the committee sought were protected by executive privilege, a constitutional principle that shields the internal communications of presidents’ top aides.
The trial judge did not allow him to use those arguments as a defense in court.
This time, the Justice Department — which had prosecuted Bannon’s case under the Biden administration — is supporting his bid to reverse his convictions. In a February filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to reverse the appeals court ruling and send the case back to trial court for dismissal. Such an outcome “is in the interests of justice,” Sauer wrote.
The Justice Department has concurrently laid the groundwork for that dismissal in lower court.
The efforts to clear Bannon come as Trump has pardoned more than 1,500 defendants charged in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters disrupted proceedings to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump has also directed a purge of prosecutors and federal investigators who worked on those cases.
In another reversal of its pursuit of a Trump ally, the Justice Department recently agreed to give former national security adviser Michael Flynn a payout to settle claims that he was wrongfully prosecuted as part of the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Salvador Rizzo and Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this report.
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