“Tomorrow all hell is going to break loose.” – From Prison to a Backdoor Pardon for Bannon

Steve Bannon served four months in prison because he refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. A court found him guilty of contempt of Congress. An appeals court upheld the conviction. The case now stands before the Supreme Court. And at this very moment, the Justice Department is stepping in - not to defend the verdict, but to make it disappear. The Trump administration wants to drop the criminal case against its longtime confidant. Solicitor General D. John Sauer has asked the Supreme Court to vacate the appeals court’s decision and remand the case to a lower court - with the clear objective of having it dismissed there.

Motion of the Government to Dismiss the Charges (Unopposed)

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), the United States of America, by and through the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, respectfully moves that this Court dismiss with prejudice the above-captioned proceeding against Defendant Stephen K. Bannon. The Government, in the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, has determined that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interest of justice. Defendant Bannon does not oppose this motion.

Grounds: Therefore, the United States of America respectfully requests that the Court grant this motion. Submitted by Jeanine Ferris Pirro, United States Attorney. (WOW, this leaves one speechless - Editorial Note)

Bannon’s attorneys had consistently argued that he did not willfully ignore the subpoena. They claimed he had merely sought to avoid violating potential assertions of executive privilege invoked by Trump. The courts did not accept that argument. They found a deliberate contempt of Congress.

“Tomorrow all hell is going to break loose.” (Steve Bannon, January 5, 2021)

That the Justice Department itself is now seeking to overturn the conviction shifts the perspective. A man convicted of contempt of a congressional investigative committee is to be effectively rehabilitated after the fact - not through a new ruling, but by withdrawing the prosecution through administrative means.

The case concerns more than Bannon as an individual. It touches on whether congressional subpoenas are binding or become politically negotiable once majorities shift. Someone who defies an investigation and is lawfully convicted should not be able to rely on a friendly Justice Department to unwind the legal process. The Supreme Court now faces a formal decision. But politically, the message is already clear: a close ally of the president is to be extracted from a conviction that other citizens without political backing would scarcely escape.

On the stage of the Conservative Partnership Academy in Washington, at the podium with the golden inscription “The 2025 Bellator Awards”, the former chief strategist of Donald Trump stood before a room full of like-minded people and spoke a sentence that, in its honesty, reveals the whole truth about this movement. If they lose, they go to prison. Some of them, at least. Him included. (November 6, 2025)

In the beginning there was unrest. Then the storming of the Capitol. Then the dead. After that the investigative committee. Then the contempt of Congress. And today the Justice Department is attempting to erase precisely that conviction.