American right-wing populist ideologue Steve Bannon, former influential adviser to Donald Trump at the White House, must begin serving his four-month prison sentence no later than July 1, a federal judge ordered Thursday.
The sentence handed down in October 2022 for obstructing the investigative powers of Congress due to Steve Bannon’s refusal to cooperate with the parliamentary investigation into the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was confirmed on appeal on May 10, 2024.
His application had been suspended due to a defense appeal, but Judge Carl Nichols lifted this suspension at the request of the prosecution and ordered that the defendant, 70 years old, report to prison no later than July 1 .
“Nothing will silence me,” reacted Steve Bannon as he left the court, predicting “a tidal wave” for the Republicans in the presidential and legislative elections on November 5.
Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, deplored on his Truth social network a “total American tragedy”, once again accusing the administration of his Democratic successor Joe Biden of “instrumentalizing” justice against its opponents.
Another former advisor to Donald Trump at the White House, Peter Navarro, also sentenced to four months in prison for the same facts, began serving his sentence in March 2024.
On January 6, 2021, Steve Bannon spoke on the phone with Mr. Trump. That day, hundreds of supporters of the outgoing Republican president stormed the Capitol, seat of the US Congress, in an attempt to prevent the certification of the victory of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in the November election. 2020.
Donald Trump was not directly concerned by the courts for the assault on the Capitol, although the parliamentary commission of inquiry into January 6, 2021 recommended criminal proceedings against him in December 2022, in particular for calling for rebellion. and conspiracy against American institutions.
He was nevertheless indicted in August 2023 by a federal court in Washington and then by the courts of the state of Georgia (southeast) for his allegedly illicit attempts to obtain the reversal of the results of the 2020 election. None A final date has not yet been set for these two trials.
It was in the final months of Donald Trump’s victorious campaign in 2016 that Steve Bannon began to make his mark, denouncing a world order controlled by political and financial elites.
He followed him to the White House in 2017, but was forced to leave the executive branch in August 2017 after the violence in Charlottesville in Virginia (east), where a gathering of radical right activists took place. A young woman was killed after a neo-Nazi sympathizer drove his car into a group of anti-racist demonstrators.
