Steve Bannon, a former advisor to former President Donald Trump, has had his appeal denied by a U.S. federal appeals court in relation to his refusal to comply with a congressional committee subpoena regarding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to a report by Reuters.
Bannon was found guilty in 2022 of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress for his refusal to provide documents or testify before the House of Representatives committee that was investigating the Capitol riot. As a result, he was sentenced to four months in prison. However, pending his appeal, he has remained free.
During his appeal, Bannon argued that his lawyer had advised him that he was not obligated to comply with the subpoena. Based on this advice, he claimed that he had no intention of committing a crime.
“Bannon’s argument would ‘hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority,’ by making it more difficult to prosecute witnesses who spurn congressional investigations, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found,” per Reuters.
Bannon has the option to appeal to both the full D.C. Circuit court and the U.S. Supreme Court. The House panel, which is