By Steve Neavling
Steve Bannon should spend six months in jail and pay a $200,000 fine after he was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department said.
In a sentencing memo, the Justice Department said Bannon “pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” since he received a subpoena last year for records and testimony about what he knew of former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, The New York Times reports.
“From the time he was initially subpoenaed, the defendant has shown his true reasons for total noncompliance have nothing to do with his purported respect for the Constitution, the rule of law or executive privilege,” Justice Department lawyers wrote, “and everything to do with his personal disdain for the members of Congress sitting on the committee and their effort to investigate the attack on our country’s peaceful transfer of power.”
Bannon, former White House stategist for Trump, was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after the House held him in criminal contempt for disobeying the subpoena.
He is set to be sentenced Friday.
