DOJ moved to dismiss Steve Bannon's Jan. 6 contempt-of-Congress conviction, seeking to erase it rather than pardon him

On February 9, 2026, the Justice Department moved to dismiss Steve Bannon's 2022 contempt-of-Congress conviction. In filings to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said "the government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice," asking District Judge Carl Nichols to dismiss the case with prejudice, which would bar prosecutors from ever refiling it. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly backed the filing, writing that "under the leadership of Attorney General Bondi, this Department will continue to undo the prior administration's weaponization of the justice system."

Bannon was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, refusing to produce documents or testify; he had asserted executive privilege on Trump's behalf. He had already served his full four-month sentence in 2024 and was separately appealing his conviction to the Supreme Court when DOJ's dismissal motion was filed. Because Bannon's conviction was already final, dismissing it — rather than granting him a pardon — erases the conviction from his record while letting Trump avoid formally pardoning an ally who had defied a lawful congressional subpoena. Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. Attorney, called the move "a purely political move," saying the Justice Department "continues to use" the department "to reward allies and punish critics."

Updates

2026-04-06 — Supreme Court vacated the appellate ruling and remanded the case for the dismissal motion [3, 4, 5]

The Supreme Court granted Bannon's certiorari petition, vacated the D.C. Circuit's ruling that had affirmed his conviction, and remanded the case to the D.C. Circuit "for further consideration in light of the pending motion to dismiss the indictment." The order did not dismiss the case outright; it returned the matter to the lower courts to act on DOJ's pending dismissal motion.

2026-08-26 — Judge rejected DOJ's dismissal motion as insufficiently justified [6]

District Judge Carl Nichols ruled that Pirro's one-page motion — stating only that dismissal was "in the interests of justice" — was "insufficient to justify" dismissing the case, and that the Justice Department would need to file a new motion articulating why it wants to abandon the prosecution. The ruling leaves Bannon's conviction in place for now, on remand from the Supreme Court's April 6, 2026 order.