Steve Bannon tosses his own lawyers under the bus in plea for leniency

Convicted criminal and former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon on Monday entered in a plea for leniency just hours after the United States Department of Justice requested that he be given a six-month prison sentence after being found guilty of being in contempt of Congress.

Per CBS News' Scott MacFarlane, Bannon's attorneys filed their own sentencing memo hours after the DOJ in which they argued that they were more to blame for Bannon's criminal conviction than their client.

Specifically, they argued that Bannon was simply following his own counsel's legal advice when he completely refused to cooperate with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots.

"Should a person who has spent a lifetime listening to experts – as a naval officer, investment banker, corporate executive, and Presidential advisor – be jailed for relying on the advice of his lawyers?" they argued.

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Bannon and his lawyers last year told the House Select Committee that they could not comply with its subpoena because Bannon purportedly feared that doing so would run into issues regarding executive privilege through his interactions with former President Donald Trump.

Of course, by the time of the January 6 Capitol riots, Bannon had not been an employee of the Trump White House for several years, and Bannon could have nonetheless provided a significant amount of information that had nothing to do with any conversations with Trump.

Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress this past summer after the jury in the case deliberated for just three hours.

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