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The Department of Justice moved Monday to toss out Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction, a rare request that served to undo yet another element of the Biden-era investigations and prosecutions related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro made the request to dismiss Bannon’s case in the district court in Washington, D.C. The dismissal would scrap Bannon’s conviction, despite the former Trump adviser and War Room podcast host already completing his prison sentence.
Bannon was convicted by a jury in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress and served four months in prison for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued to him by the Jan. 6 select committee, a Democrat-led House panel tasked with investigating the events leading up to the 2021 Capitol attack.
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Bannon had fought the subpoena, arguing to the committee that it violated executive privilege because it sought details about his interactions with President Donald Trump ahead of the Jan. 6 rally and breach. In court, Bannon also argued that the committee, which was led by seven Democrats and two Republicans, was improperly impaneled.
Pirro gave little explanation for the DOJ’s move, which would erase Bannon’s conviction despite the sentence already being served.
“The government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice,” Pirro wrote in the brief request.
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Bannon, for his part, has continued to challenge the conviction and has a petition pending before the Supreme Court. Parallel to Pirro’s dismissal request, Solicitor General John Sauer asked the high court on Tuesday to grant Bannon’s petition.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that Bannon’s conviction arose from the “J6 ‘Unselect’ Committee’s improper subpoena” and attributed the dismissal to the DOJ’s efforts to course correct what it perceived to be an abuse of power during the Biden administration.
“Under the leadership of Attorney General Bondi, this Department will continue to undo the prior administration’s weaponization of the justice system,” Blanche said.
The DOJ did not make a similar request for Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump, who also faced Jan.6-related contempt charges and served four months in prison. Navarro shared a statement on social media saying he wanted to continue fighting his conviction in court and “settle good law” on the matter.
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