The Supreme Court tossed an appeals court ruling that upheld the conviction of Trump ally Steve Bannon on Monday, paving the way for the contempt case against him to be dismissed.
Bannon was convicted in federal court in 2022 for defying a subpoena issued by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee, and he ultimately served a four-month prison sentence in 2024 after losing an appeal. The high court announced in an orders list released Monday morning that it had decided to send the case back down to a lower federal court for a likely dismissal, as the Justice Department requested earlier this year.
The DOJ asked the Supreme Court to take up the case, toss the conviction, and send it back to federal district court, where it had asked for the case against Bannon to be dismissed. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the petition to the high court that “the government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”
It is unclear when the district court could grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case.
With the Supreme Court tossing the appeals court ruling, the case is now on the procedural road to dismissal, which could spell the end of a five-year legal saga that began under the Biden administration. Before leaving the White House in 2021, President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon for his role in a border wall funding fraud scheme.
Bannon was one of two Trump allies who were convicted for defying a subpoena brought by the House Jan. 6 committee, as part of the committee’s investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Peter Navarro, an economic policy adviser to Trump in his second term, was also convicted for defying a subpoena from the now-defunct House committee.
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Navarro, who was also sentenced to four months in prison, has also appealed his conviction in a bid to wipe it from his record.
In its Monday orders list, the Supreme Court also announced it would take up a case regarding whether a veteran can take his appeal over a reduction to his veterans benefits to a federal district court or if it must go through a veterans’ appeal board. The high court could hear arguments in that case as soon as October.