Steve Bannon is headed to jail.
The man partially responsible for engineering Donald Trump’s stunning 2016 victory will report to prison on July 1 after a federal judge ordered he serve a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
“There’s not a prison or jail built that will ever shut me up. All victory to MAGA, we’re going to win this,” remarked Bannon moments after the order came down outside a federal courthouse on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, revoked Bannon’s bail and approved the sentence after a federal appeals court last month rejected Bannon’s attempt to overturn his conviction for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee.
Bannon was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress in 2022 after he refused to cooperate with the Democratic-led House of Representatives committee. Bannon now joins another top Trump ally, Peter Navarro, in prison. Navarro is similarly serving a four-month sentence.
The Committee had hoped to question Bannon about public comments he made about the 2020 election indicating he was involved in attempts to overturn it. Bannon and Navarro are credited with the “Green Bay Sweep” strategy whereby members of Congress would object to the certification of electoral votes.
The “Sweep” never materialized and Joe Biden was sworn in as president.
Bannon’s attorneys argued that the aptly nicknamed “Honey Badger” should remain a free man as the case works its way through an appeal process, but Nichols dismissed their arguments.
With his prison term to last until November, Bannon will now be sidelined during the most contentious part of the 2024 election season.
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