Prosecutors Recommend Steve Bannon Be Sentenced To Six Months In Prison For Failing To Comply With January 6th Committee Subpoena
17.10.2022 - 19:11
/ deadline.com
UPDATED: Federal prosecutors have recommended that Steve Bannon be sentenced to six months in prison for flouting a subpoena issued last year by the January 6th Committee.
Bannon is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday after a jury in July found him guilty of contempt of Congress charges.
The minimum sentence is 31 days, but in a filing on Monday, prosecutors wrote that Bannon “has pursued a bad faith strategy of defiance and contempt” to warrant a maximum penalty.
Prosecutors also recommended a $200,000 fine “based on his insistence on paying the maximum fine rather than cooperate with the Probation Office’s routine pre-sentencing financial investigation.”
Later on Monday, Bannon’s attorneys filed their own sentencing recommendation, arguing that he should be sentenced to probation, and to stay that sentence pending appeal. His attorneys argued that he was convicted “without being allowed to introduce evidence negating willfulness, and specifically, evidence that he relied in good faith on his counsel’s advice.”
Bannon, a Hollywood film producer in the 1990s who then pursued politics via documentaries and at Brietbart.com, served as chief adviser to Donald Trump for the first six months of his presidency. He has since hosted a regular podcast.
Bannon, who is appealing the jury’s verdict, had challenged the subpoenas last year on the grounds that Trump had asserted executive privilege. But the committee and prosecutors pointed out that Bannon left the White House in 2017, and has been a private citizen since then.
In its resolution last year recommending the contempt charge, the January 6th Committee said that Bannon “appears to have had multiple roles relevant to this investigation, including his role in