The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a final attempt by former Trump White House staffer Steve Bannon to avoid going to prison next week while he appeals his conviction for failing to comply with a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
Bannon, 70, will begin a four-month prison sentence on Monday for contempt of Congress.
The Supreme Court in its unsigned, one-line command On Friday it was announced that Bannon's “request for release pending appeal is before the Chief Justice [John Roberts] and forwarded by him to the court, is rejected.”
The court in March rejected a similar request from Peter Navarro, another former adviser to former President Donald Trump who was also sentenced to four months in prison for failing to comply with a Jan. 6 subpoena from the House investigative committee. Navarro will begin serving his sentence soon.
A lawyer for Bannon did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the Supreme Court order.
Bannon was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress in a trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC in July 2022. His prison sentence was suspended in October 2022 pending an appeal of his conviction.
Last month, a three-judge federal appeals court affirmed his conviction and denied Argument that Bannon did not violate the law because his lawyer had advised him not to comply with the committee's January 6 subpoena because of the possibility that his testimony could be blocked by a claim of executive privilege.
Bannon is expected to ask the appeals court in Washington, DC, to rehear his appeal of his conviction. But the district judge in his case, Carl Nichols, ordered him to report to prison on June 6 to begin serving his sentence.
Last week, Bannon asked the Supreme Court to stay his transfer date pending an appeal. The Supreme Court's order on Friday denied that request, making it all but certain that Bannon will serve his sentence before his appeals are exhausted.
The bipartisan House committee was created to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and forced Congress to delay certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.
The committee targeted Bannon after reports emerged that he had predicted on January 5, 2021, that “all hell would break loose” the following day and that he was involved in talks to overturn the election results.
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