Steve Bannon, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, must start serving his four-month prison sentence by July 1, a district judge in Washington DC has ruled.The former Trump chief strategist was found guilty in 2022 of two charges of contempt of Congress after he failed to appear for a January 6 House Committee hearing and refused to hand over documents related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Bannon, 70, was initially given a stay of his prison term by US District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, as the Breitbart veteran appealed his conviction.
But a federal appeals court upheld the original sentence in early May, and now Nichols says it’s time for Bannon to serve his time.”I do not believe the original basis for my stay exists any longer,” Nichols said on Thursday, per The Associated Press.Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse that he plans to bring his appeal to a higher court.”I’ve got great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to,” he said.The right-wing podcaster slammed the “entire Justice Department,” saying the institution would not be able to “shut up Trump” and his allies.”There’s not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up,” Bannon added.His looming prison sentence comes as Peter Navarro, another close Trump ally, surrendered in March to serve his four months in prison for also refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.Bannon, who was for about seven months Trump’s chief strategist and senior counsel at the White House, previously declared he would be willing to go to jail for the former president.If he starts serving his sentence on July 1, his four-month sentence would last until just before the presidential elections on November 5.
