Steve Bannon should be jailed for six months and fined $200,000 for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum filed Monday.
In a scathing document filed in D.C. federal court, the Justice Department criticized the longstanding ally of Donald Trump for his “sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress” which “exacerbated” the assault on the Capitol. The government added that it would seek the harshest punishment available for Bannon after he was found guilty of two criminal counts of contempt of Congress in July for refusing to testify or hand over documents to the Jan. 6 investigators.
“To this day, he continues to unlawfully withhold documents and testimony that stand to help the Committee’s authorized investigation to get to the bottom of what led to January 6 and ascertain what steps must be taken to ensure that it never happens again,” the DOJ wrote in the filing. “That cannot be tolerated.”
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The filing added that Bannon has “never taken a single step to comply with the Committee’s subpoena and has acted in bad faith throughout by claiming he was merely acting on former President Trump’s instructions—even though former President Trump’s attorney made clear he was not.”
Bannon’s lawyers responded with their own sentencing recommendations later Monday, requesting he be sentenced to probation only. He will face sentencing on Friday.
In their filing, they posed a winding list of questions to argue that Bannon shouldn’t be locked up at all, let alone for six months.
“Should a person be jailed when the case law which sets forth the elements of the crime is outdated? Should a person be jailed for doing the exact same thing that was done by the highest law enforcement officers in this country, yet they received no punishment?” the filing says.
“Should a person who has spent a lifetime listening to experts—as a naval officer, investment banker, corporate executive, and Presidential advisor—be jailed for relying on the advice of his lawyers? Should a person be jailed where the prosecutor declined to prosecute others who were similarly situated—with the only difference being that this person uses their voice to express strongly held political views? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then a sentence of probation is warranted.”
The former White House strategist’s sentencing comes after the Jan. 6 committee held what is likely to be its last public hearing last week. Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the panel, played a recording of Bannon speaking days before the 2020 election in which he said, “If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.”
As the hearing closed, the panel also subpoenaed Trump for his testimony after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) declared the former president the “central cause” of the Capitol riot. Trump responded with a 14-page letter to the committee’s chair, Bennie Thompson (D-MS), which began: “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!”
Bannon is facing a separate indictment on state fraud charges over his role in a fundraising scheme for the Mexico border wall. Trump previously pardoned Bannon in a federal case over the allegations.
