General Discussion

Bannon refused to comply with a subpoena from the 1/6 committee, and was convicted of violating the law that makes it a crime to “willfully” fail to respond to a congressional subpoena. He was sentenced to, and served, four months in prison. The D.C. Circuit upheld Bannon’s sentence, rejecting his argument that his failure to comply with the subpoena was not “willful" because he was acting at his attorney’s advice since the executive privilege issue had not been resolved, and not in bad faith, but was not allowed to present that argument at trial. The court had said acting on advice of counsel is deliberate and therefore willful. SCOTUS took Bannon's appeal and sent the case back to the district court so it could dismiss the indictment.

I suppose Bondi could make the same argument, but apparently the reason the case was sent back to the district court was because Bannon had been precluded from raising the advice of counsel argument at trial and not because that is an automatic defense.