Steve Bannon's Delayed Prison Sentence a 'Miscarriage of Justice': Attorney

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's continued delaying of his prison sentence is a "miscarriage of justice," former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner argued on Friday.

A one-time executive for the conservative Breitbart News, Bannon previously served as the chief executive officer for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, later transitioning to chief White House strategist during the first seven months of the Trump administration. Since leaving that position, he has hosted the War Room podcast series and advocates for far-right political causes worldwide.

In 2022, Bannon was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing a subpoena for testimony from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, in which a large mob of Trump supporters attempted to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The former president said, without evidence, that the election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud. Trump and his supporters, like Bannon, have attempted to claim that the former president had no influence over the group that day, an argument strongly countered by others, including in a criminal indictment from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Bannon's four-month prison sentence has, however, been on hold since then as he appeals the convictions. He was also fined $6,500.

On Thursday, a judge ruled that another Trump ally and adviser, Peter Navarro, must serve a four-month prison sentence despite his pending appeals, in a situation that closely mirrors Bannon's. Like him, Navarro was also convicted on charges of contempt of Congress for defying a House committee subpoena. He will now become one of the first individuals in the U.S. to serve jail time for contempt of Congress charges in roughly 50 years.

Speaking about the situation in a Friday edition of his Justice Matters YouTube series, Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and U.S. Army prosecutor turned vocally anti-Trump legal analyst, compared Navarro's fast-approaching prison sentence to Bannon, decrying the latter as making a mockery of the justice system. He also highlighted the different judges presiding over the two men's cases as a possible explanation for how things have played out.

"There's an interesting disparity in what's happened to Navarro versus what happened to Bannon, because Bannon committed virtually the same crimes," Kirschner said. "But Bannon is out, pending appeals. He hasn't had to spend one minute behind bars, yet. So why is there this disparity in the way that two convicted defendants are being treated? Well, the judge who presided over Peter Navarro's case is a judge named Amit Mehta. He is a straight-up, fair, impartial, no-nonsense judge."

He continued: "Steve Bannon committed the same crimes, was convicted of the same offenses, was handed the same sentence, four months in prison, but the judge who presided over Steve Bannon's trial is a guy named Carl Nichols. Guess who he was appointed by? He's a Trump appointee. And I think it represents a real miscarriage of justice that Steve Bannon has been permitted to be out, out and out about."

Newsweek reached out to Bannon's office via email on Saturday morning for comment.