Prosecutors Want Steve Bannon Jailed for 6 Months for Failing to Show Up to Dems' 'Show Trial'

The former Trump official was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in July after ignoring a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots. He has accused the government of engaging in “prosecutorial overreach,” and says he’s ready to go to jail to defend what he believes in.

Federal prosecutors have requested that former Trump presidential advisor and Breitbart.com editor Steve Bannon be locked up for six months and pay a $200,000 fine for contempt of Congress.

“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 investigators,” the government wrote in a 24-page sentencing memo filed Monday.

“A person could have shown no greater contempt than the Defendant did in his defiance of the Committee’s subpoena,” the memo added.

Bannon, 68, failed to show up to the House Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol riots in September 2021. The committee, consisting of seven Democrats and two Never-Trump Republicans, has characterized the breach of the Capitol as an “unprecedented attack” on Congress and American democracy by “white nationalists” and “far-right extremists.” Bannon and other pro-Trump Republicans dismissed the January 6 hearings as a “clown show,” “witch hunt,” and “show trial” whose sole purpose is getting Donald Trump banned from running for president again in 2024.

A jury found Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress in July for failing to abide by the Select Committee’s subpoenas. The former presidential aide told US media shortly after that he was prepared to go to jail. “I support Trump and the Constitution and if they want to put me in jail for that, so be it,” he said.

Bannon is also facing a separate criminal fraud investigation. Last month, he surrendered to New York state prosecutors, who accuse him of skimming a million dollars off the top of a $25 million pro-Trump "We Build the Wall" crowdfunding campaign. He has vocally denied the charges against him in that case.

The former official has accused the FBI of “coming after” him and other MAGA supporters, and vowed that those engaged in the campaign against him would have to “kill” him before he stopped resisting the “deranged thugs” engaged in his persecution.

Bannon is expected be sentenced on the contempt of Congress charges on Friday.