Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Biden-Harris administration’s Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) refusal to uphold the First Step Act of 2018 when implementing the four-month prison sentence handed to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is “flagrantly illegal.”
Bannon was sentenced to four months imprisonment for a 2022 conviction on contempt of Congress charges for ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 Select Committee. He is currently serving out his term at the Federal Correctional Institution Danbury in Danbury, Connecticut.
While Bannon is scheduled to be released from prison on October 29, The Star has since revealed that the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) failed to uphold the Trump-era criminal justice reform, the First Step Act, in his case.
The First Step Act (FSA), which was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump, requires inmates to be evaluated using the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs (PATTERN), which helps BOP officials determine the length and venue of a sentence.
In addition, under the FSA, inmates may earn “good time credits” to reduce their sentence through behavior and participation in prison programs.
It has since been revealed to The Star that Bannon has accrued 10 days of good time credit toward an early release which means the former Trump advisor could have been released to home confinement on October 19.
Pappert, who has reported on Bannon’s case, said the BOP’s failure to enact the FSA in Bannon’s case “seems flagrantly illegal.”
“I don’t understand how you can pass a criminal justice reform and then say the guy who was in the white house as the chief strategist when it was being passed, well, he doesn’t get to enjoy the benefits,” Pappert added on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Pappert went on to explain how it appears that the BOP’s failure to enact the FSA for Bannon and other inmates points to the “general incompetency” of the Biden-Harris administration.
“I think the Biden-Harris administration is trying to hide by the general Incompetence that has characterized every government agency throughout their tenure because in my research, I was reading the BOP has actually struggled not just with Steve Bannon, but under Kamala’s regime they have struggled to implement the FSA at all,” Pappert said.
Pappert added that the Biden-Harris administration just recently issued its first guidance on the FSA, which he said was “very convenient for the Democrats” given the end of Bannon’s sentence was approaching.
“Actually just three weeks ago…they finally implemented some guidance, the first guidance under Biden-Harris as to how to handle this. I think this is all very convenient for the Democrats. I think it’s almost perfect that they wait until Bannon is almost out of prison and frankly, their administration is almost over to acknowledge that maybe they should have been working a little bit faster to get this landmark criminal justice reform…implemented,” Pappert said.
Moving forward, Pappert said he hopes Bannon leads a class action lawsuit against the BOP for its seemingly illegal and unfair behavior towards certain inmates under the Biden-Harris administration.
“I hope to see in the days before the election Steve Bannon lead some sort of class action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons, because this we know is affecting other January 6th defendants, but I would wager a lot of money it’s affecting just about anybody who the Biden regime, the Biden Harris administration, doesn’t want out of prison sooner,” Pappert said.
“So in other words, if you are a transgender, Antifa domestic terrorist, you probably get out in no time at all. But if you’re Steve Bannon, enjoy your sentence,” Pappert added.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
