House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said he would file a legal brief supporting an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court by Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Trump, to avoid prison.
Bannon filed the appeal after being ordered to report to prison by July 1 in connection with his conviction for evading a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The House of Representatives’ Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group – a group made up of the Speaker and the majority and minority leaders and whipsaws that directs the House’s legal position – voted along party lines in favor of filing an amicus brief in Bannon’s case, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Johnson announced his plans to file an amicus brief in interviews with Fox News and CNN on Tuesday night, arguing that the Jan. 6 Select Committee, which investigated the deadly riot for months throughout 2021, conducted a “tainted” investigation.
“We’re in the process of filing an amicus brief on appeal in his case because we believe the January 6th committee was improperly constituted,” Johnson told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “We believe the work was tainted. We believe they did a good job of suppressing evidence and may have engaged in more nefarious activity as well.”
“We’ve looked into the committee itself, and I don’t agree with the way Speaker Pelosi put the committee together, and I think it violates the House rules,” he continued. “So we’re going to take that to the court, and I think that will help Steve Bannon’s appeal.”
Republicans have long opposed the special committee’s subpoenas on Jan. 6, arguing they were improperly constructed. So far, those arguments have not been successful in court.
Bannon, who was ordered to serve his four-month sentence by July 1, filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court last week to avoid being jailed as part of his appeal of his conviction. The former adviser to President Trump was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress in 2022 after refusing to defy a subpoena from the special committee on January 6 and refusing to interview with the committee and provide documents.
Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro is currently serving a four-month sentence after being convicted of contempt for similarly ignoring a Jan. 6 subpoena. He sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court but was turned down.
Johnson’s announcement also came after Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., sent a letter to the speaker early Tuesday urging Louisiana Republicans to file an amicus brief in support of Bannon’s appeal.
Banks’ plea was no coincidence: The Indiana Republican had been appointed by then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to be the lead committee member on the January 6 select committee, but then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blocked Banks and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) from serving on the committee.
In response, McCarthy removed all of his appointees from the committee, and Pelosi appointed former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) to the select committee, making it a bipartisan task force, though Republicans rejected the idea that it was bipartisan because the Republican leadership did not appoint them.
Johnson on Tuesday night denied that filing an amicus brief in support of Bannon would undermine his ability to enforce congressional subpoenas in the future.
“No, not at all,” Johnson told CNN’s Caitlin Collins on “The Source.”
