Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to let him remain out of prison while he continues to appeal a nearly two-year-old conviction on criminal contempt of Congress charges.
Bannon filed an emergency motion Tuesday evening asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overrule a lower court’s order last week that he report to prison for four months on July 1.
Bannon is asking the D.C. Circuit to quickly rule on his motion — by next Tuesday — to allow him time if necessary to appeal to the Supreme Court over his conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022, after he refused to answer questions from the House Jan. 6 committee.
Bannon's attorney argued in Tuesday's filing that his imprisonment would block him from acting as a "meaningful adviser" in the campaign leading up to the November election.
"The government seeks to imprison Mr. Bannon for the four-month period leading up to the November election, when millions of Americans look to him for information on important campaign issues," wrote Trent McCotter, a new addition to Bannon’s legal team. "This would also effectively bar Mr. Bannon from serving as a meaningful advisor in the ongoing national campaign.”
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit last month upheld Bannon's contempt of Congress conviction, prompting the trial judge who presided over Bannon’s case to rule that he must report to prison at the end of the month.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said last week that the “original basis” for his stay of the imposition of Bannon’s sentence no longer applied after an appeals court upheld the conviction.
Nichols had allowed Bannon to remain out of prison while he pursued that appeal.
Bannon’s lawyers have said they intend to ask the full bench of the D.C. Circuit to review his appeal and that he should not be required to report to prison until all avenues of appeal have been exhausted.
A prosecutor from the U.S. attorney's office for Washington, D.C., which sought to lift a stay of Bannon's sentence pending appeal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison, the same sentence former Trump adviser Peter Navarro is serving. Navarro also battled to stay out of prison following his conviction on contempt of Congress charges.
Navarro took his emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, where it was rejected first by Chief Justice John Roberts and a second time by the full court. He is serving his four-month sentence at a federal prison in Miami.
