Key Donald Trump ally and one-time aide Steve Bannon ordered to prison by judge

William Mata
·2-min read
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon (Getty)
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon (Getty)

Donald Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon has been ordered to prison for a four-month sentence that must start by July 1, a judge has said.

The right-wing podcaster, 70, was convicted of contempt of Congress in 2022 for refusing to appear before a committee investigating the Capitol riots in January 2021.

Mr Bannon was also convicted over failing to provide documents about his involvement with Mr Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to president Joe Biden.

Mr Bannon has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has vowed to fight this latest ruling.

Outside the court on Thursday, he was heard to say: “I've got great lawyers, and we're going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.

"There's not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up.”

“[These legal challenges are] about shutting down the Maga movement,” he added in reference to Mr Trump’s ‘make America great again’ brand.

Mr Bannon was a special adviser to Mr Trump during his first election campaign in 2016 and then a chief strategist during his presidency before he quit in August 2017.

Since the 2022 conviction, there have been legal battles around Mr Bannon and federal judge Carl Nichols on Thursday granted a Justice Department request to force his sentence.

The judge had been appointed by Mr Trump and had initially allowed Mr Bannon to remain free while he challenged the conviction.

Mr Bannon’s lawyer David Schoen has said that his client should be given the opportunity to seek all lines of appeal before he is put behind bars.

He told reporters: “In this country, we don't send anyone to prison if they believe that they were doing something that complied with the law.”

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • The world must prepare for President Michelle Obama

    The 2024 US Presidential race intensifies. Speculation abounds over potential replacements for President Joe Biden amid increasing pressure from his party and the media to step aside after a jaw-dropping, catastrophic debate against Donald Trump last week. Among the names circulating, a game-changer is emerging: Michelle Obama. Could this be America’s worst nightmare?

  • Listen: Biden says he is ‘first black woman to serve with a black president’

    Joe Biden has said he is “proud” to be the first “black woman to serve with a black president” in one of a series of verbal gaffes as the USA celebrated Independence Day.

  • World’s Winningest Party Loses in Spectacular Style

    LONDON—The Conservatives, the world’s winningest political party, were booted out of power in dramatic style on Thursday after 14 years of chaotic and divisive rule.The exit poll, which dropped at 10 p.m. local time (5 p.m. EDT), showed that the Labour Party had secured a landslide victory, ending an era of Conservative rule over Britain that stretches back to 2010; the year that the iPad and Instagram were launched and Lady Gaga wore that meat dress to the MTV music awards.In that time, the Con

  • Biden ‘seriously considering’ leaving election race

    Joe Biden has for the first time said that he is considering ending his presidential campaign, according to reports.

  • Beijing is laughing at the West’s weakness

    Russian aggression in Ukraine poses a threat to world peace and stability. China provides material support for Russia’s actions. All this is entirely clear. In Beijing, immediately after a meeting with Xi Jinping in April this year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support”. This included selling huge quantities of machine tools and micro-electronics that would be used in the Russian defence industry.

  • 9 out of 10 voters say there are important differences between Biden and Trump. Here’s what they see as the biggest ones

    If there’s one thing that American voters overwhelmingly agree on, it’s that this year’s presidential election presents a stark choice. In the latest CNN poll by SSRS, 91% of registered voters say they see important differences between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, dwarfing even the 77% of voters who said last fall that there were significant divides between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even among the so-called “double haters” – those with unfavorable views of

  • The UK is about to get a new prime minister — someone Obama has been mentoring for months

    The leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, has been mentored by Barack Obama. The relationship is likely to continue if Starmer wins the UK election.

  • Zelensky U-turns as he invites Russia to attend peace summit without giving up land

    Volodymyr Zelensky has invited Russia to the next peace summit despite previously saying it could only join if it relinquished land in Ukraine.

  • Philippine military chief warns his forces will fight back if assaulted again in disputed sea

    Philippine forces will defend themselves with “the same level of force” if they come under assault again from China’s coast guard in the disputed South China Sea, where Chinese personnel armed with machetes and spears injured Filipino navy personnel and damaged two of their boats in a chaotic faceoff last month, the Philippine military chief said Thursday. Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. asked China to pay 60 million pesos ($1 million) in damages for the two navy boats and return seven rifles which he said were seized by Chinese coast guard personnel during the June17 confrontation at Second Thomas Shoal.

  • Trump Caught on Video Claiming ‘Broken-Down’ Biden Has Quit: ‘It’s Kamala’

    Donald Trump delivered a brutal assessment of Joe Biden’s performance against him in last week’s presidential debate, calling the president a “broken-down pile of crap” teetering on the verge of “quitting the race” in a video provided by a source to The Daily Beast.“He just quit, you know—he’s quitting the race,” Trump says, sitting in a golf cart. “I got him out of the—and that means we have Kamala.”Later in the clip, he fawns over Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling him “a fierce man, very t

  • Hezbollah fires 200 rockets and drones into Israel

    Hezbollah launched the barrage in response to Israel's killing of one of its senior commanders.

  • The US Air Force seems hell-bent on getting rid of its greatest ever fighter jet

    The US Air Force has been in an unseemly hurry to rid itself of its Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighters. Its argument: the 32 least-upgraded Block 20 versions of the supersonic, fifth-generation stealth fighter aren’t suitable for combat – and together cost nearly half a billion dollars a year to maintain.

  • A massive fire on a Russian warship was set by a saboteur fighting against his own country, Ukraine says

    The operative who set the fire was a sailor in the Russian fleet when he asked to covertly work for Ukraine, Ukrainian military intelligence said.

  • House Democrat is proposing a constitutional amendment to reverse Supreme Court's immunity decision

    A leading House Democrat is preparing a constitutional amendment in response to the Supreme Court's landmark immunity ruling, seeking to reverse the decision “and ensure that no president is above the law.” Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, sent a letter to colleagues informing them of his intent to file the resolution, which would kickstart what's traditionally a cumbersome amendment process. "This amendment will do what SCOTUS failed to do — prioritize our democracy,” Morelle said in a statement to AP.

  • Leaked polling memo ‘shook Democrats in their boots,’ says former Obama adviser

    Former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer said that a leaked polling memo “shook Democrats in their boots” in a Wednesday Substack post. The polling memo from Open Labs, leaked to Puck News, showed how President Biden’s support was sliding following his panic-inducing debate performance Thursday. The Open Labs memo noted the “largest single-week drop” in Biden’s…

  • Have the Houthis sunk a British warship? Here’s what actually happened

    Yesterday afternoon the Iranian-backed militia in Yemen, the Houthis, claimed they had targeted four ships which they deemed to belong to the US/UK/Israel “trio evil”. According to the rapidly becoming famous Houthi spokesman Yahya Sare’e – the Comical Ali of the 2020s – “the British landing ship Anvil Point” was targeted and “the hit was accurate and direct. The ship was targeted by a number of cruise missiles.”

  • Who could replace Joe Biden as Democratic nominee? Here are six possibilities

    After his catastrophic debate against Trump and reports that some Democrats are calling for Biden to step aside, here’s who could run against Trump instead

  • Trump Throws 4th Of July Fit In 'Disgraceful' New Holiday Tantrum

    Critics called out the former president for a bonkers Independence Day message that barely mentioned the holiday.

  • Hezbollah fires over 200 rockets into Israel after killing of senior commander

    The Lebanese Hezbollah group said it launched over 200 rockets on Thursday at several military bases in Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed one of its senior commanders. The Israeli military said "numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets" had entered its territory from Lebanon, many of which it said were intercepted. It said about 200 “projectiles” were launched toward the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and over 20 drones into Israeli territory, but that it had intercepted some of them.

  • Anthony Fauci defends ‘groggy’ Biden as pressure mounts for president to quit

    Anthony Fauci, one of America’s most senior and often controversial medical officials, has defended Joe Biden after his “groggy” performance in his debate with Donald Trump.