A federal judge shot down the Trump Justice Department's attempt to wipe out Steve Bannon's contempt of Congress conviction Wednesday, ruling prosecutors didn't even bother explaining why they wanted the case dropped.
Bannon, an ally of President Donald Trump, was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 Committee and served four months in prison after his conviction was upheld on appeal. But after the Supreme Court agreed to send his case back for further review earlier this year, the Trump DOJ moved to dismiss the entire indictment, and Bannon's own lawyers didn't object.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, himself a Trump appointee, wasn't satisfied with the government's reasoning, or lack thereof. The DOJ's motion offered just one sentence explaining its decision, stating only that dismissal was "in the interests of justice."
Nichols ruled that explanation didn't cut it, calling it exactly the kind of "conclusory statement by the prosecutor" that courts have repeatedly rejected as insufficient under federal rules governing dismissed indictments.
The judge left the door open for DOJ to try again, but only if it actually explains its reasoning next time. Nichols also flagged a bigger legal question prosecutors will need to answer: a 2025 appeals court ruling found that the government generally can't dismiss a case once a judgment has already been entered, unless that judgment gets vacated first. Since Bannon's original conviction was never technically vacated by this court, even though the Supreme Court set aside the appellate ruling, Nichols wants DOJ to explain whether that precedent blocks them from dismissing the case at all.
For now, Bannon's conviction stands, leaving prosecutors back at square one to justify why they want to let him off the hook.