The Supreme Court has opened the door for the criminal case against Steve Bannon to be dismissed, undoing a prior ruling that upheld his conviction for contempt of Congress.

In a brief order issued Monday, the court vacated a decision from a Washington, D.C. appeals court and sent the case back for further proceedings. This move allows the United States Department of Justice to follow through on its request to drop the charges, which it says is in the “interests of justice.”

The case against Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump, has stretched back to 2021; he had been out of government since 2017 and was a private citizen at the time of the events in question. Bannon was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 United States Capitol attack. The panel had sought documents and testimony related to efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.

At the time, Bannon argued he could not cooperate because Trump had invoked executive privilege—an argument his legal team says he followed in good faith. Prosecutors, however, maintained that he willfully defied the subpoena. Although Bannon later indicated a willingness to testify and claimed Trump had waived executive privilege, it did not change the outcome of his trial. His conviction was upheld on appeal in 2024 before now being set aside by the Supreme Court. A jury ultimately found him guilty, and he served a four-month prison sentence in 2024, along with paying a fine.

Now, with the high court’s latest action, the legal process shifts back to lower courts, where the Justice Department is expected to formally move to dismiss the case—effectively erasing the conviction, though largely as a symbolic step since Bannon has already served his sentence.

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