Divided D.C. appeals court rejects Steve Bannon’s release bid pending appeal

UPDATE (June 21, 2024, 11:38 a.m. ET): Steve Bannon has asked the Supreme Court for continued release pending appeal.

A divided federal appeals court panel in Washington rejected Steve Bannon’s emergency bid to stay out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction. The rejection moves the Donald Trump ally a step closer to reporting to prison July 1 to serve his four-month sentence, though the Supreme Court can still intervene.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit split 2-1 in its rejection Thursday night. Bannon’s bid doesn’t raise a “close question” warranting relief, according to the two judges in the majority, Barack Obama appointee Cornelia Pillard and Joe Biden appointee Bradley Garcia.

The dissenting judge, Trump appointee Justin Walker, said that there is a close question regarding interpretation of the contempt statute. He wrote that, while the D.C. Circuit is bound by its precedent to rule against Bannon in his underlying appeal, the Supreme Court, which isn’t so bound, may take a different view.

Walker concluded that “because that question may well be material, Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari.”

In his motion, Bannon’s lawyers had asked the appeals court to rule by June 18 “to allow sufficient time to seek further relief from the Supreme Court if necessary.”

Another former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, recently lost a similar bid to stay out of prison pending appeal of his own contempt of Congress conviction; he’s currently serving that sentence. Navarro took his failed attempt all the way to the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Roberts took the rare step of writing an opinion explaining why Navarro wasn’t allowed to remain free while he appealed. Both Bannon and Navarro were convicted for refusing to comply with the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation.

In his motion to the appeals court, Bannon’s lawyers cited Roberts’ opinion rejecting Navarro. They wrote that if “the underlying merits presented by Dr. Navarro were of no interest or substantiality, presumably Chief Justice Roberts would simply have denied the request without explanation,” adding that Roberts noted procedural issues with Navarro’s claim for emergency relief that Bannon’s lawyers say aren’t present in their client’s.

Opposing Bannon’s release motion, federal prosecutors wrote to the appeals court that speculation about why Roberts wrote the opinion doesn’t mean that the Supreme Court would be interested in taking Bannon’s case. With his release attempt now headed toward the justices, we’ll learn whether the high court is interested. Relief there is still far from guaranteed, but Walker’s dissent may give Bannon hope for a different outcome than Navarro.

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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com