Federal appeals court upholds Bannon conviction

A federal appeals court on Friday denied a bid by one-time Trump adviser Steve Bannon to topple his contempt of Congress conviction, upholding his sentence for failing to comply with a subpoena from the now-disbanded Jan. 6 committee.

“It is undisputed that the first time Bannon raised these arguments was in district court, long after his deadline for responding to the subpoena had passed,” Judge Brad Garcia wrote for a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.

“A witness cannot defend against a contempt of Congress charge based on an affirmative defense that they were able, but failed, to raise at the time they were ordered to produce documents or appear.”

Bannon was found guilty in 2022 of both failing to appear for a deposition ordered by the committee, as well as refusing to turn over documents they subpoenaed.

He was sentenced to four months behind bars and ordered to pay a $6,500 fine.

The decision is the latest in a string of losing battles for Bannon and former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who likewise failed to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 panel.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene as Navarro sought emergency relief before he was ordered to head to a Florida prison to serve his four-mouth sentence. 

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in his case largely affirmed a lower court’s determination that Navarro’s appeal does not raise a “substantial question of law” and therefore doesn’t warrant his release.

The federal appeals court also found that for Navarro’s arguments on executive privilege to raise substantial questions, it would have required former President Trump to have invoked said privilege — which the court said “did not happen here.” 

Bannon could still ask for the full bench of the appeals court to review his case, possibly delaying his prison term, or ask the Supreme Court to review the case.

In appealing his conviction, Bannon had asked the court to reconsider how willfulness is evaluated in the law, noting he sought the advice of an attorney even as he failed to produce a single document or appear for the deposition.

“Bannon insists that ‘willfully’ should be interpreted to require bad faith and argues that his noncompliance does not qualify because his lawyer advised him not to respond to the subpoena,” Garcia wrote.

“This court, however, has squarely held that ‘willfully’… means only that the defendant deliberately and intentionally refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, and that this exact ‘advice of counsel’ defense is no defense at all.”

Updated at 12:01 p.m. ET