Steve Bannon speaks outside Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn., in July 2024 as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., left, listens (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson).
One day after federal prosecutors said his arguments in favor of an early prison exit were “footless,” former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is trying to “take advantage” of the First Step Act, criminal justice reform signed into law and “championed” by then President Donald Trump, in a bid for some leniency on his punishment for the “non-violent” offense of stonewalling the Jan. 6 Committee.
The Friday reply from Bannon, which comes weeks after he asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to reimpose bail pending appeal based on “significant events,” reiterated that the federal inmate’s contempt of Congress stint behind bars should end before Election Day.
But in the event that Nichols doesn’t want to go that far, Bannon alternatively proposed a “brief period of supervised release, in conjunction with a brief sentence reduction if necessary,” so he “could take advantage of First Step Act earned-time credits available to nearly every other inmate serving time for non-violent offenses.”
“Having to wait thirty days for the BOP to refuse to seek such relief, as the government insists here, would force Mr. Bannon to wait for nearly the entirety of the remainder of his sentence—time that he could otherwise serve on supervised release under the First Step Act,” the reply said. “Having to wait to exhaust BOP remedies would thus effectively preclude Mr. Bannon from being able to obtain any meaningful relief from this Court.”
Bannon was convicted by a jury in July 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition, and he was subsequently sentenced to four months in prison. At first, Nichols allowed Bannon to remain free as he appealed his sentence and conviction. When the Supreme Court declined to stop Bannon’s incarceration, however, Bannon spoke outside of prison walls in Connecticut on July 1 and declared, “I’m proud to go to prison.”
On Thursday, federal prosecutors called the bail or supervised release asks baseless.
“The defendant shows no basis for the Court to reverse its earlier ruling lifting the stay of his sentence, a ruling that both the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court have effectively endorsed,” prosecutors said. “He also fails to justify modifying his sentence to impose a period of supervised release.”
Prosecutors, writing that Bannon “fails to overcome the presumption of detention pending appeal” and provided Nichols no reason to disturb his prior ruling based on the hope that maybe the whole U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will rehear Bannon’s case.
“There is no basis to conclude from the pendency of the defendant’s rehearing petition that it is ‘very likely’ the D. C. Circuit will either grant rehearing en banc or deny rehearing with a dissent,” the government said. “The defendant shows no basis to assume that the D.C. Circuit is not simply dealing with a heavy workload after a summer recess and certainly offers no support for his speculation that he will receive rehearing en banc.”
“At bottom, the defendant’s attempt to ‘read tea leaves’ does not establish any basis for the Court to release a defendant whom this Court, the D.C. Circuit, and the Supreme Court have ruled must be detained,” prosecutors added.
Bureau of Prison records show that Bannon, 70, is slated to be released from FCI Danbury on Oct. 29.
Colin Kalmbacher and Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
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