Steve Bannon news: Ex-White House strategist won’t be detained before trial as Trump judge given case

Bannon is under the court’s “general supervision” and will be allowed to return home. There will be detention prior to his trial.

Mr Bannon’s legal team appearing alongside him are David Schoen from the Trump impeachment defence team, and Matthew Corcoran, a veteran of the DC US Attorney’s office.

One of the conditions of release is that Mr Bannon must notify the court of any travel outside of the District of Columbia. He is scheduled to appear at an event in Baltimore on Tuesday.

A defiant Mr Bannon and his lawyer addressed the media outside of the court.

“This is going to be the misdemeanor from hell,” he said. “We’re going to go on the offence.”

“They took on the wrong guy this time,” he added.

“This is not an investigative committee,” says his lawyer David Schoen, accusing the 6 January select committee of pre-judging in its probe of the Capitol riot.

Bannon called out Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden claiming the president ordered his prosecution.

Mr Bannon was heckled during his remarks and a man stood nearby with a large sign that read: “Coup Plotter”.

The former Trump adviser was called a “Traitor” and a “Fascist”.

He argues that Bannon has obligation to withhold documents.

If former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon thinks having his contempt of Congress case assigned to a judge appointed by former president Donald Trump is a lucky break, he might want to think again.

Mr Bannon’s case will be heard by US District Judge Carl Nichols, a former partner at the law firm WilmerHale who served in the George W Bush administration after clerking for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

A former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Judge Nichols has made a number of rulings in high profile cases which have gone against the interests of Mr Trump and his allies.

In August, he declined to grant motions to dismiss lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems against pillow maker turned conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. A year before that, he blocked the Trump administration from implementing an executive order barring social media company TikTok from operating in the US.

And since January, he has heard a number of cases related to the 6 January insurrection — and he has not shied away from locking defendants up. At a bail hearing earlier this year, he told one defendant’s lawyer that she was “an active person in a riot that aimed to prevent by violent means a normally quiet but critical step in the peaceful transition of power,” and said her actions “[flew] in the face of common decency and [flew] in the face of democracy and the rule of law”.

On Friday, he sentenced another defendant — Bradley Rukstales of Inverness, Illinois — to 30 days in jail for demonstrating in the Capitol without a permit.