Steve Bannon, former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress. Bannon was convicted for refusing to appear to testify before the committee after receiving a subpoena. Federal prosecutors asked the court to sentence Bannon to six months in prison and a $200,000 fine. Bannon is expected to appeal the conviction, according to CNBC.
Federal Judge Carl Nichols agreed with the prosecution regarding the claim that Bannon “expressed no remorse and attacked the select committee at every turn.” It also said that Bannon, who was a close ally of former President Trump, “consistently acted in bad faith” when he tried to delay the investigation.
The prosecutors further claimed that Bannon, who is accused of conspiring to defraud donors to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a campaign to build a wall along the southern US border with Mexico, “acted in bad faith and with defiance and contempt from the moment he was served with the subpoena.”
“A person could not show greater contempt than the defendant did,” they told the court. “The rioters who occupied the capitol on January 6 did not attack just any building – they attacked the rule of law upon which this country was built. By disregarding the summons of the select committee and its authority, the defendant aggravated the attack,” the indictment reads.
Bannon’s sentencing came a year after the House voted to impeach Congress for refusing to respond to a subpoena by the House Select Committee on Documents and Testimony. Bannon was indicted in November on two felony counts and convicted after a federal trial.