WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday, November 5, asked a federal judge to wipe away Steve Bannon's contempt-of-Congress conviction, its second attempt to erase one of the highest-profile prosecutions to come out of the House investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected the department's first bid in August, finding prosecutors had not adequately explained why they wanted the case dropped.
Source: NBC News, via Workers Rights News
Bannon served as chief strategist and senior counselor to President Donald Trump in his first term. A federal jury convicted him in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating January 6, and he completed a four-month prison sentence. The conviction has stayed on his record while the legal fight over it continued.
Source: ABC News, via KXLY
What the new motion argues
In Thursday's filing, the department said it had determined that "dismissal is in the interests of justice because, in an exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, the Executive Branch does not believe that it is appropriate to pursue contempt of Congress charges against a former advisor to the President who did not comply with a subpoena investigating the events of January 6, 2021, based on an asserted belief that he was protected by executive privilege."
The administration said it "harbors significant doubts" about the fairness of Bannon's trial. Law360 reported the renewed filing argues that circuit precedent barred Bannon from arguing he had not "willfully" defied the subpoena. The department also said that, in light of Trump's pardons and commutations for January 6 defendants, seeking to keep Bannon's conviction in place "is inconsistent with this Administration's enforcement priorities." Trump pardoned hundreds of January 6 defendants on his first day back in office.
The motion was signed by Deputy Associate Attorney General Michael Weisbuch. It did not carry the name of Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter, who previously represented Bannon. Bannon's own legal team did not oppose the request, so the decision now rests entirely with the judge.
How the case got here
In February, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, led by Jeanine Pirro, first moved to vacate the judgment and dismiss the indictment with prejudice — meaning the case could never be brought again. An appeals court had upheld the jury's verdict, but in April the Supreme Court wiped out that appeals-court ruling and sent the case back to Judge Nichols for further consideration in light of the government's motion.
Nichols, whom Trump appointed to the bench in 2019, denied the first request in August — but "without prejudice," leaving the door open to try again. According to Bloomberg Law's account of that ruling, he faulted prosecutors for failing to follow local rules requiring them to explain their motivations, and said the government must provide "a statement of reasons and underlying factual basis" for dismissal, not merely a broad assertion that dropping the case would serve the interests of justice. Thursday's longer filing is the department's answer to that demand.
Judge Nichols told prosecutors in August that a one-line claim of "the interests of justice" was not enough: the government must give a statement of reasons and the underlying factual basis for asking a court to dismiss an indictment after a jury has already convicted. The November 5 motion, citing trial fairness, executive privilege and enforcement priorities, is built to meet that test.
What happens next
Nichols has not ruled on the renewed motion, and no hearing date has been reported. If he grants dismissal with prejudice, Bannon's conviction would be erased from his record and the case closed for good. If he refuses again, the conviction stands — Bannon has already served his sentence, so the fight is over his record, and over the precedent for what happens when a presidential adviser defies a congressional subpoena.
The case is one of the clearest tests of how far the Trump administration will go in unwinding January 6 prosecutions: the defendant is a former top adviser, the request is unopposed, and the final word belongs to a judge the president himself appointed — who has already said once that the department must explain itself properly before he will sign.