Far right-wing activist Steve Bannon, the man who helped Donald Trump get into the White House and later served as one of his top advisors, should spend the next six months in jail, and be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for being found guilty of contempt of Congress, the U.S. Dept. of Justice says.
“For his sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress, the Defendant should be sentenced to six months’ imprisonment—the top end of the Sentencing Guidelines’ range—and fined $200,000—based on his insistence on paying the maximum fine rather than cooperate with the Probation Office’s routine pre-sentencing financial investigation,” DOJ prosecutors said in its court filing, ABC News reports.
“From the moment that the Defendant, Stephen K. Bannon, accepted service of a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, he has pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt,” prosecutors added. “The Committee sought documents and testimony from the Defendant relevant to a matter of national importance: the circumstances that led to a violent attack on the Capitol and disruption of the peaceful transfer of power. In response, the Defendant flouted the Committee’s authority and ignored the subpoena’s demands.”
When he was found guilty in July, Bannon, described himself as “we,” and alluded to a “war.”
“We may have lost a battle here today, but we’re not going to lose this war,” he said. “[The jury] came to their conclusion about what was put on in the in that courtroom. But listen, in the closing argument, the prosecutor missed one very important phrase, right? ‘I stand with Trump and the Constitution, and I will never back off that, ever.'”
In August Bannon threatened Attorney General Merrick Garland would be the one in prison.
“The FBI is a Gestapo, the Justice Department – Merrick Garland, you’re going to go to prison, brother,” Bannon declared. “We’re going to be so relentless when we take power this year on your impeachment, but then after your impeachment to file criminal charges against you, you people are pure and entire scum. Okay?”
Aside from not explaining what Garland could be charged with, Bannon did not state how he was going to “take power this year.”
In June, Bannon was called “American Rasputin” and “a threat to democracy,” by The Atlantic‘s Jennifer Senior, who says he is “attempting to insert a lit bomb into the mouth of American democracy.”