{"id":586241,"date":"2026-04-06T17:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586241\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T17:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T17:13:09","slug":"supreme-court-clears-path-for-trumps-doj-to-dismiss-criminal-case-against-steve-bannon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586241\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court clears path for Trump\u2019s DOJ to dismiss criminal case against Steve Bannon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to drop the government\u2019s criminal case against Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser convicted in 2022 of defying a subpoena<\/a> from lawmakers investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Supreme Court\u2019s decision follows a move by federal prosecutors in February to drop the indictment brought during President Joe Biden\u2019s administration. Both the Justice Department and Bannon had asked the high court to toss out an appeals court ruling upholding the conviction and send the case back to a trial court so that the original charges against him could be dismissed.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis case should never have been brought, and we\u2019re delighted that the decision affirming Mr. Bannon\u2019s unlawful conviction has finally been vacated,\u201d Bannon\u2019s attorney, Michael Buschbacher, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bannon was convicted<\/a> by a federal jury for refusing to comply with\u202fa\u202fsubpoena\u202ffor an\u202finterview and documents in the US House\u2019s January 6, 2021, investigation. He already completed a four-month prison<\/a> sentence for that in 2024.\n <\/p>\n

\n The decision won\u2019t have much of a practical consequence given that Bannon has already served his time, but Trump\u2019s former aide has nevertheless continued to challenge his conviction.\n <\/p>\n

\n Still a staunch Trump ally, Bannon argued in his appeal to the Supreme Court that he did not willfully ignore the House committee subpoena but was rather relying on advice from his attorneys to not respond to the subpoena until lawmakers worked out Trump\u2019s claims of executive privilege.\n <\/p>\n

\n His appeal turned on how lower courts define \u201cwillfully.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Bannon \u201cargued he should be allowed to explain his reliance on counsel\u2019s advice and on executive privilege, but he was \u2018precluded \u2026 from presenting such a defense at trial,\u2019\u201d his attorneys told the Supreme Court. \u201cThat was a crucial flaw\u201d in his trial, they said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Justice Department under Biden said that Bannon responded to the subpoena \u201cwith total noncompliance.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But in an about face that tracks with Trump\u2019s widespread pardoning of people involved with the January 6, 2021 riot, the Justice Department told the Supreme Court that it was no longer pursuing the case.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice,\u201d the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a 2024 decision, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, said that its own precedents on congressional subpoenas foreclosed Bannon\u2019s arguments. The fact that Bannon was operating on advice from his lawyers, the court said, was \u201cno defense at all.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Weeks later, the Supreme Court rejected similar arguments<\/a> Bannon made in an emergency appeal in which he sought to avoid prison. The court\u2019s brief order brushing aside the request meant that Bannon had to report for his sentence. There were no noted dissents at the time.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe criminal contempt of Congress case against Steve Bannon never should have been brought. It was brought by the Biden Justice Department solely for political purposes,\u201d Bannon\u2019s trial attorney David Schoen told CNN in a statement. \u201cThe prosecution undermined the constitutionally important principle of separation of powers once Executive Privileged was invoked by the President.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That order came months after another former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro,\u202fsimilarly\u202ffailed to receive a break<\/a>\u202ffrom the conservative high court.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional details.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to drop the government\u2019s criminal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-586241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}