Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to order former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to begin serving his four-month prison sentence after an appeals court last week upheld his conviction on contempt of Congress charges.
In a motion filed Tuesday, prosecutors said there is “no legal basis” for Nichols to continue the stay on Bannon’s sentence after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected his appeal on all grounds.
“Consequently, there is no longer a ‘substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial,’” prosecutors wrote in the motion. “Under these circumstances, the Court ‘shall order’ defendant ‘be detained,’ so the stay of sentence must be lifted.”
Nichols, who has not ruled on the motion, ordered Bannon later Tuesday to respond to it by Thursday.
The office of David I. Schoen, Bannon's attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a filing later Tuesday, Schoen asked to file their response in opposition to the prosecutors’ motion on May 20 instead of Thursday. Schoen said that counsel for the government was consulted and did not object to the request for an extension.
Schoen also noted that the district court typically provides 14 days for a response to a motion, compared to the two days it gave Bannon to respond, adding that other cases were creating scheduling conflicts for him this week.
Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $6,500 in October 2022 after he was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena by the House Jan. 6 committee to provide documents and testimony. The judge, however, postponed the sentence pending Bannon's appeal.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. circuit court last week upheld Bannon’s conviction.
In a statement last week following the appeals court ruling, Schoen said he plans to ask the full D.C. Circuit to hear his client’s case.
“That is the next step,” he said.
