The last time conservative media personality Steve Bannon faced a serious legal problem, it was exactly one year ago this week, when he pleaded guilty to defrauding donors in a border wall scheme. Bannon had originally pleaded not guilty in the case, but he reversed course after striking a deal with prosecutors in New York that helped him avoid a prison sentence.

Or more to the point, another prison sentence.

Bannon’s other serious legal problem came to the fore a year earlier when the podcast host and former White House strategist reported to a federal prison after having been found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress as part of the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack. After serving a four-month sentence, he was released shortly before Election Day 2024.

In theory, that represented the end of the dispute, but in practice, it wasn’t quite that simple: Bannon and his lawyers continued to challenge his conviction, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping to have the case overturned. After the high court justices asked the Justice Department to weigh in, my MS NOW colleague Jordan Rubin highlighted the unusual developments that followed:

On Monday, the day that the DOJ’s high court response was due, it didn’t file a brief opposing Bannon’s petition, as the government routinely does when criminal defendants petition the court. Rather, the DOJ told the justices that it was making a motion in the trial court to dismiss Bannon’s case, and it asked them to vacate the appeals court ruling against him and to send the case back so it can be dismissed in the lower court. 

“The government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice,” prosecutors said in their Supreme Court filing.

In other words, Bannon wants his conviction overturned; the justices asked the DOJ for its perspective; and Justice Department officials effectively replied, “Sounds good to us.”

(This is the same conservative media personality who also faced federal criminal charges related to the fraudulent border wall scheme, though that case evaporated when Donald Trump pardoned Bannon the night before he left the White House in January 2021.)

A New York Times report added that the practical effect of the Justice Department’s move this week is limited, “but the government’s dismissal of the indictment against him would effectively wipe out the conviction. It follows a pattern of Mr. Trump using the Justice Department to punish his perceived enemies and protect his friends, including by repeatedly granting clemency to allies and supporters and pardoning rioters charged in connection with Jan. 6.”

And therein lies the larger point. Bannon had his day in court, he lost and he was held accountable. Trump’s Justice Department is on board with undoing his conviction, apparently for the most obvious of reasons: The defendant is allied with the president.

This keeps happening. If you’re a convicted criminal whom Trump likes, you get a pardon. If you’re an accused criminal whom Trump likes, the charges against you evaporate. And if you’re a criminal who wants an earlier conviction overturned, and Trump looks favorably on you, the president’s Justice Department will endorse your endeavor.

For years, Republicans were obsessed with the idea that the United States had entered an era of a “two-tiered” system of justice. As it happens, they had the right concern about the wrong president.