WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, must report to prison by July 1 to serve his four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the U.S. Capitol insurrection, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington granted the Justice Department’s request to make Bannon begin his prison term after a federal appeals court panel last month upheld his contempt of Congress conviction.
Bannon is expected to seek a stay of the judge’s order, which could delay his surrender date.
“I’ve got great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to,” Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse. He added: “There’s not a prison built or jail built that will ever shut me up.”
In a social media post Thursday, Trump accused prosecutors of being “desperate” to jail Bannon. Trump repeated his claim that Republicans are being persecuted by a politically motivated justice system — rhetoric that has escalated in the wake of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s conviction last week on 34 felony charges in his New York hush money trial.
Nichols, the judge who ordered Bannon to report to prison, was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2018.
Bannon was convicted nearly two years ago of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and the other for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Nichols had initially allowed him to remain free while he fought his conviction because the judge believed the case raised substantial legal questions. But during a hearing in Washington’s federal court, Nichols said the calculus changed after the appeals court panel said all of Bannon’s challenges lack merit.
“I do not believe the original basis for my stay exists any longer,” Nichols said.
Bannon can appeal his conviction to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prosecutor John Crabb told the judge it was “very unlikely” Bannon would succeed in getting his conviction thrown out.