Supreme Court clears path for DOJ to erase Steve Bannon's Jan 6 conviction

By Fox News · Fox News

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Justice Department to dismiss the criminal conviction against President Donald Trump's former advisor, Steve Bannon — a symbolic, but significant move in one of the highest-profile prosecutions tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and resulting congressional probe. In a brief, unsigned order, justices tossed an appeals court ruling that upheld Bannon’s criminal contempt conviction, sending the case back down to a district court judge for dismissal. The order clears a key legal obstacle for the Trump administration to dismiss Bannon's criminal conviction completely. EX-FBI AGENTS INVOLVED IN ARCTIC FROST PROBE SUE FOR WRONGFUL TERMINATION The reversal is largely symbolic. Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and former White House advisor, was convicted in 2022 on two criminal charges of contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to testify before a House select committee investigating the Capitol riot. He had already served a four-month prison sentence for the convictions in 2024, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the guilty verdict handed down by the jury and declined to rehear the case. Bannon had also been ordered to pay more than $6,000 in fines in connection with the conviction. The Supreme Court, for its part, declined at the time to grant his emergency application to further postpone jail time. FBI AGENTS SUE TRUMP DOJ TO BLOCK ANY PUBLIC IDENTIFICATION OF EMPLOYEES WHO WORKED ON JAN. 6 INVESTIGATIONS In vacating the appeals court order, justices on the high court removed a key legal obstacle preventing the Trump administration from dismissing Bannon's conviction. Bannon’s lawyers had argued at the time that he had been acting on the advice of his counsel in refusing to comply with Congress. They also attempted to argue claims of executive privilege, though the latter sparked skepticism from House lawmakers , who noted that Bannon had departed the White House in 2017, several y…