OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Department of Justice has made its recommendation for prison time in Steve Bannon’s ongoing case.
It said it wants the former top advisor to former President Donald Trump to be sentenced to six months behind bars, CNN reported.
“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,” the department said in a court filing on Monday.
The Department of Justice said that Bannon “freely answered questions about his family, professional life, personal background, and health. But the Defendant refused to disclose his financial records, instead insisting that he is willing and able to pay any fine imposed, including the maximum fine on each count of conviction.”
“The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6 did not just attack a building – they assaulted the rule of law upon which this country was built and through which it endures. By flouting the Select Committee’s subpoena and its authority, the Defendant exacerbated that assault,” it said.
In July, attorney and former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz argued that former advisor to former President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, did not get a fair trial and that his conviction was likely to be negated.
The attorney said that Bannon was never going to get a fair trial in Washington D.C. because of the demographics of the city.
He made the case when he appeared on the Newsmax show “The Record” with host Greta Van Susteren.
“What do you think of this verdict, and what do you think of what’s likely to happen to him?” the host said.
“Entirely predictable and entirely in violation of the Constitution. The only provision of the Constitution which appears basically twice is trial by jury, in front of a fair jury. Number one he didn’t have a fair jury. Number two the judge took his defenses away from him. The judge denied him a jury trial. They wouldn’t allow him to put on evidence that he believed there was an executive privilege involved and he wanted a judicial determination before he violated the executive privilege. That issue could not be presented to the jury,” he said.
“As I predicted on this show and other shows before this conviction was a foregone conclusion. The only issue is will it be reversed by an appeal. Either by the appellate court in the District of Columbia or by the Supreme Court. I think its very likely that this conviction will be reversed at some point,” he said.
DERSH: Very likely the Bannon conviction gets reversed pic.twitter.com/el253vQZAW
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 23, 2022
The onetime top counsel to then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump responded with fire during an appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” telling the host that he’s more committed than ever to the former president.
As he introduced the segment, Carlson noted that on the same day Bannon was convicted, New York authorities released a man who was arrested a day earlier after he lunged at GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin with a sharp object in an attempt to cause him bodily harm, as Zeldin was campaigning for governor.
“A guy who tried to murder a gubernatorial candidate in New York was released with no bail. What are we to make of these two events occurring the same day?” he asked Bannon.
“As you can tell, the Democrats are completely lawless and look how they’ve run this committee,” Bannon said, before he said, “There is no ranking member. There’s no minority counsel. It’s not like the traditional hearings that have galvanized the nation in the past.”
Bannon was referencing the Jan. 6 Committee, which was hand-selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat also, in an unprecedented manner, refused to allow Republicans to seat their own members, which led House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other members to declare the panel a politicized sham.
