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Former prime Trump White Home advisor Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to 4 months in jail for defying a subpoena from the congressional probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
A U.S. District decide additionally fined Bannon $6,500. However he dominated that Bannon is not going to must serve the sentence till an anticipated attraction performs out.
Each the jail time period and high-quality got here in under the punishments really helpful by federal prosecutors.
The continuing makes Bannon one of many highest-profile figures to be sentenced to jail on prices associated to the riot.
Prosecutors needed the court docket to condemn Bannon to 6 months in jail — the highest finish of the federal sentencing tips vary — and the utmost high-quality of $200,000.
A right-wing media determine and onetime shut ally of former President Donald Trump, Bannon “persistently acted in dangerous religion” as he tried to impede the Home choose committee’s investigation, prosecutors argued.
Bannon had requested federal Decide Carl Nichols for a sentence of probation. His attorneys additionally argued that the court docket ought to delay any sentence imposed till an appeals court docket may hear the case.
However Nichols dominated through the sentencing listening to that the legal statute requires him to condemn Bannon to a minimum of one month in jail.
The decide additionally agreed with prosecutors that Bannon has “not expressed regret and has attacked the choose committee at each flip.”
Bannon declined to talk on his personal behalf when given the chance, telling the decide, “My attorneys have spoken for me, your honor.”
Bannon’s sentencing got here one yr to the day for the reason that Home voted to carry him in contempt of Congress for refusing to adjust to a Home choose committee’s subpoena for paperwork and testimony. Bannon was indicted in November on two legal counts and convicted after a federal trial in July.
Bannon’s lawyer had argued the subpoena would violate Trump’s govt privilege, the presidential energy to withhold sure data from the general public.
However Bannon reversed course days earlier than his trial, saying he was prepared to testify as a result of Trump had agreed to waive his govt privilege declare.
Prosecutors known as {that a} stunt. In a court docket submitting Monday, they wrote that after Bannon’s gambit didn’t delay the trial, “he by no means made any additional try and adjust to the subpoena—persevering with as much as today.”
Attorneys for Bannon argued partly that Bannon ought to obtain a light-weight sentence as a result of he was merely following his lawyer’s recommendation when he defied the choose committee’s subpoena.
“The details of this case present that Mr. Bannon’s conduct was based mostly on his good-faith reliance on his lawyer’s recommendation,” the defendant’s attorneys wrote in a court docket submitting this week.
However the Justice Division prosecutors mentioned Bannon “pursued a bad-faith technique of defiance and contempt” from “the second” he was served the subpoena.
“An individual may have proven no higher contempt than the Defendant did in his defiance of the Committee’s subpoena,” they informed the court docket.
“The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6 didn’t simply assault a constructing—they assaulted the rule of regulation upon which this nation was constructed and thru which it endures. By flouting the Choose Committee’s subpoena and its authority, the Defendant exacerbated that assault,” their memo mentioned.
That is creating information. Please examine again for updates.
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