The organizers of an international conservative conference stand defiant after a court ordered one of its featured speakers—a former senior adviser to President Donald Trump—to begin serving prison time shortly before the conference starts in July.
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Steve Bannon must begin serving his sentence for contempt of Congress charges on July 1. Bannon’s conviction came in 2022 after a jury found him guilty of ignoring a subpoena from the House’s Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee.
Bannon’s four-month stint behind bars is scheduled to begin just days before his appearance at the National Conservatism Conference, which starts on July 8 in Washington, D.C. The Edmund Burke Foundation, which manages the three-day event, called Bannon’s prosecution “lawfare,” a term that means legal warfare.
“Steve Bannon has been one of the…