I’m not a lawyer, but Bannon has claimed two things. First, executive privilege and second, the commission was not legally formed. The commission never worked things out between Bannon’s and Trump’s lawyers on the executive privilege point. There was not a court proceeding saying there was or was not executive privilege. Garland filed charges anyway.
Correct, and the judge would not allow Bannon’s defense to explain to the jury the reason that he would not appear before the committee. The Executive Privilege that Trump invoked was not Bannon’s to waive.
So the only information the jury had, or were allowed to have, was that Bannon failed to appear or provide documents.
Bannon respected Trump’s wishes and THAT is why he received the sentence he did today. It is no more complicated than that.