The US Justice Department moved on Monday to overturn a conviction against Steve Bannon, a former advisor to President Donald Trump, in a case linked to the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon, a leading figure of the far right, served four months in a federal prison for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena to testify before the panel investigating the 2021 attack. He was freed in October 2024.
The Justice Department, in a filing to the Supreme Court, asked to send the conservative firebrand’s case back to a lower court, where a separate motion seen by AFP seeks to throw out the case.
“The government has accordingly lodged a motion in the district court… to vacate the judgment and dismiss the indictment with prejudice,” the motion reads.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a statement to the Washington Post, described the move as a course correction from what he claimed was “the prior administration’s weaponization of the justice system.”
In the motion to dismiss Bannon’s case, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro argued it was “in the interest of justice” to do so.
Bannon was one of the loudest voices behind false accusations claiming fraud in the 2020 presidential election won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Bannon is yet to comment, but Pirro’s motion states that he “does not oppose” it.
In a separate case, Bannon pleaded guilty last year to defrauding donors who gave money to a private scheme to build a wall on the US-Mexico border — a key Trump campaign promise.
Bannon entered a guilty plea in an agreement with New York prosecutors that spared him prison time.
One of the masterminds behind Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Bannon also faced federal charges over the border wall scheme but received a pardon at the end of the Republican’s first term in the White House.
bur-ane/msp
