The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is preparing for trial against three of Bannon’s co-defendants in an alleged border wall fundraising scam, is seeking an “administrative” termination of Bannon’s case, which would halt the prosecution against him for good but would not clear his name from the docket. The case would officially remain pending while the others, who were not pardoned by Trump before he left office in January, await trial…

It is not clear why the U.S. attorney is challenging what was expected to be a straightforward dismissal of Bannon’s case, or whether prosecutors believe the case against the remaining three would suffer strategically at trial should Bannon be officially excluded.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres on Feb. 25, prosecutors argued that “the pardon granted to Bannon is not a basis to dismiss the Indictment against him” and that it does not eliminate the probable cause that led to his indictment, “nor does it undercut the evidence of his involvement therein which the Government expects to elicit as part of its presentation at trial.”