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Former Trump White House senior advisor Stephen Bannon and his lawyers David Schoen and Matthew Evan Corcoran talk to reporters after leaving federal court after being sentenced on October 21, 2022 in Washington, DC.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Conservative political commentator and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison and ordered to pay a $6,500 fine Friday for refusing to comply with a subpoena by the January 6 Committee. Bannon has vowed to appeal the sentence.

The former Trump aide, who attempted no defense during the trial, told reporters after the jury’s verdict that he respected the judge’s decision but that his legal team is planning a “vigorous appeals process.”

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols agreed to stay Bannon’s penalty pending the anticipated appeal, The Washington Post reported.

Friday’s sentence comes after the Department of Justice asked a federal judge on Monday to hit Bannon with an even greater penalty, recommending a six-month prison sentence and a $200,000 fine. Bannon is the first person to be sentenced to prison time for bucking a Congressional subpoena in decades, NPR noted.

In July, a federal jury convicted Bannon of two counts of contempt of Congress after he attempted to cite executive privilege the previous year in response to being subpoenaed to testify before the Democrat-led January 6 Select Committee.

READ: Steve Bannon convicted by federal jury for not complying with Democat-led Jan. 6 investigations

The Committee sought Bannon’s testimony regarding former President Donald Trump’s alleged culpability in the riot at the U.S. Capitol that unfolded after Trump’s “Stop the Steal” speech on January 6, 2021.

Bannon initially said he would not appear before the Committee, citing concern about Trump’s potential executive privilege claims. In July, following a letter from Trump waiving executive privilege, he said he was willing to testify.

However, federal prosecutors rejected what they called Bannon’s “last-minute” reversal, opting to proceed with the case against him.

“The Defendant’s last-minute efforts to testify almost nine months after his default — he has still made no effort to produce records — are irrelevant to whether he willfully refused to comply in October 2021 with the Select Committee’s subpoena,” prosecutors wrote, according to CNN.

Bannon has slammed the January 6 Committee as a “show trial,” and suggested in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that a true investigation into the events of January 6 would focus on alleged “intelligence failures” and potential FBI and DHS “involvement.”

The fiery former Trump adviser told reporters after his sentencing that he has only “one disappointment, and that is the gutless members of that show trial committee, the J6 Committee, didn’t have the guts to come down here and testify in open court.”

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