U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols rebuffed a series of arguments Bannon had lodged, including that Trump had asserted executive privilege to block his former aide’s testimony.

The ruling is an early win for the Justice Department against Steve Bannon, who is slated to go on trial next month on two charges for contempt of Congress. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s effort to dismiss the criminal contempt case against him for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee.

In an oral ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols rebuffed a series of arguments Bannon had lodged, including that Trump had asserted executive privilege to block his former aide’s testimony. Nichols contended that there’s insufficient evidence that Trump truly did assert privilege or seek to block Bannon from testifying to the panel the House created to investigate the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and related events.

Nichols, a Trump appointee, also rejected Bannon’s claim that internal Justice Department opinions granted him “immunity” from a congressional subpoena for documents related to his contacts with Trump while Trump was in office. But Nichols said Bannon’s team had not presented evidence that DOJ’s opinions applied in his case — the case of a former White House aide subpoenaed for testimony related to a former president.

The ruling is an early win for the Justice Department against Bannon, who is slated to go on trial next month on two charges for contempt of Congress. The Jan. 6 select committee subpoenaed him in September, but Bannon refused to appear or provide any documents. The House held Bannon in contempt in mid-October and DOJ charged him three weeks later.

A masked Bannon, wearing an all-black button-down shirt, sat in the courtroom with his arms folded while Nichols ran through a series of arguments Bannon had raised against the indictment — and rejected each of them. He is slated to go on trial in July, though his attorney, David Schoen, indicated he might seek to postpone the trial date given the publicity surrounding the Jan. 6 select committee’s public hearings.

In another win for the select committee, Nichols declined to rule that the structure or make-up of the committee undercut the validity subpoena to Bannon, sweeping aside arguments that the panel was operating improperly because the panel lacks any appointees of House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy.

“The court cannot conclude as a matter of law that the committee was invalidly constituted,” Nichols said. He noted that the House had repeatedly ratified the work of the select committee by voting to support its motions to hold various witnesses in contempt, an indication that the House viewed the committee’s work as valid. Courts, he noted, are required to give great deference to the House’s interpretation of its own rules.

Nichols had some harsh words for DOJ prosecutors, though. He said he agreed with Bannon’s team that the department crossed lines in its efforts to obtain phone and email logs of Bannon’s attorney Robert Costello. Though he said Bannon hadn’t shown the conduct warranted dismissal of the case altogether, he said he intends to revisit the matter after Bannon’s trial.

Several other motions related to the evidence in Bannon’s trial — as well as a complicated decision about how jurors in the case will be told to evaluate the evidence they’re shown at trial — will be decided at a later date, Nichols said.

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.