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Steve Bannon, the rightwing media host and ally of Donald Trump, appears likely to have his criminal conviction dismissed.
The US supreme court filed a brief order on Monday that vacated a lower court ruling that had upheld Bannon’s conviction and sent the case back to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit for “further consideration in light of the pending motion to dismiss the indictment”. The Trump administration had moved to dismiss Bannon’s conviction.
Bannon served in the first Trump administration for less than a year as a chief strategist. He has since become a major voice among the “Make America great again” movement, largely through his War Room podcast.
He was convicted by a jury in DC federal court of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to submit to a subpoena to testify before the US House of Representatives committee that focused on the January 6 insurrection. An appeals court later upheld his conviction and he spent four months in prison in 2024.
Bannon has argued he was following attorneys’ advice when he refused to testify. In his filing to the supreme court, his attorneys argued there were questions of separation of powers and how executive privilege played into the congressional subpoena, though Bannon was not part of the Trump administration during the 2021 Capitol riot. They also said the courts claimed “willfully” not complying with the subpoena was the same as “intentionally”.
“Fundamental separation of powers principles – which are essential to our constitutional framework – lead to one path forward,” Bannon’s attorneys wrote in a filing to the supreme court.
In its filing to the supreme court, the Trump administration, which is seeking to overturn his conviction, wrote: “The government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”
Because Bannon already served his sentence, overturning the conviction would be a symbolic victory.
In addition to these convictions, Bannon also pleaded guilty to fraud charges in New York state court related to a campaign to finance and build a border wall. He was pardoned by Trump for those federal charges.
