Washington. The Supreme Court cleared the way for Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Donald Trump, to have his contempt of Congress conviction overturned.
Thus, the nation’s top court decided to set aside an appellate ruling that upheld Bannon’s conviction and ordered the case back to a trial judge for review. The measure responds to a petition filed by the former strategist himself, which the Trump administration joined in February.
Bannon was sentenced after refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify before a congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. For this contempt, he served a four-month prison sentence in 2024.
A key figure in Trump’s first presidential campaign, Bannon was removed as White House chief strategist in August 2017. He later became one of the most visible voices promoting unfounded fraud allegations about the 2020 election, in which Democrat Joe Biden emerged as the winner.
In another case, Bannon pled guilty in 2024 to defrauding donors who funded a private project to build a wall along the United States–Mexico border, one of Trump’s principal campaign promises. Although he also faced federal charges for that scheme, he received a pardon at the end of Trump’s first term.
