A DC jury on Friday reached a verdict in Steven Bannon’s criminal contempt case after a four-day trial. After deliberating for three hours, the jury found Steven Bannon guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress. Bannon is facing up to two years in prison. Steve Bannon blasted the “gutless” January 6 Committee members in remarks outside of the courtroom.
“I only have one disappointment and that is the gutless members of that show trial committee, the J6 Committee didn’t have the guts to come down here and testify in open court,” Bannon said.
Bannon’s lawyer said he will file an appeal.
“You will see this case reversed on appeal,” Bannon’s defense counsel said to reporters outside of the courtroom.
VIDEO:
Steve Bannon: “I only have one disappointment and that is the gutless members of that show trial committee, the J6 Committee didn’t have the guts to come down here and testify in open court.”
Steve Bannon: "I only have one disappointment and that is the gutless members of that show trial committee, the J6 Committee didn't have the guts to come down here and testify in open court." pic.twitter.com/jkpJaKqo70
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 22, 2022
Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist for President Donald Trump, faced two contempt of Congress charges for defying subpoenas to the controversial and completely biased January 6 Select Committee.
Recall, a DC grand jury indicted former Trump Chief Strategist Steve Bannon last November for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6 Committee.
Bannon refused to provide documents to the January 6 Committee because President Trump asserted executive privilege.
“Based on long-standing U.S. Department of Justice authority, you should not appear for deposition or provide documents,” Bannon said.
Bannon Calls for Republicans to Launch Jan. 6 Investigation After Midterm Elections
Republicans need to launch a congressional committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol and how the events of that day were handled, Steve Bannon said on July 22.
The panel should also probe the House of Representatives special panel currently probing Jan. 6, he said.
If Republicans flip the House in the midterm elections, then “we have to really govern, govern on offense,” Bannon said on Fox News, speaking hours after he was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress.
“Every committee in the House has to be an oversight committee,” he added later. “And we have to have a real Jan. 6 committee, including to get to the staffers now, and see about the lies and misrepresentations they put on national television to defame people. I would tell the Jan. 6 staff right now preserve your documents, because there’s going to be a real committee and this is going to be backed by Republican grassroots voters and MAGA who are going to say, ‘we want to get to the bottom of this for the good of the nation.’”
Pressing questions include whether Ray Epps, a man seen urging people to enter the Capitol, was an FBI asset, and the circumstances surrounding the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot dead by a police officer, Bannon said.
Joel B. Pollak writes: Banon Trial Is A Farce (below)
In his closing statements, Bannon’s attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, suggested that the J6 committee was illegitimate and politically motivated – and that their deadlines for Bannon to comply with were nothing more than “placeholders” for further negotiation, the Washington Post reported earlier Friday.
Corcoran added that Bannon “didn’t intentionally refuse to comply with a subpoena. Absolutely not. He didn’t intentionally refuse to comply with anything.”
Assistant US Attorney Molly Gaston, meanwhile, told jurors that Bannon “chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law,” and highlighted his failure to respond or produce a single document before the deadline, after which Bannon’s attorneys say that Trump intended to invoke executive privilege.
“When it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress’s authority or play by the government’s rules,” said Gaston. “…. It is important because our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules.”
In his closing, Corcoran took aim at the credibility of the main prosecution witness, Kristin Amerling, the chief counsel for the Jan. 6 committee and a long time aide to Democratic lawmakers. He suggested she and the Democrats on the committee were in a rush to score political points and punish Bannon, singling him out of more than 1,000 committee witnesses in an election year.
Gaston ridiculed that reasoning.
“There is nothing political about figuring out why January 6 happened, and how to make sure it never happens again,” she said. “And there is nothing political about enforcing the law against someone who, like the defendant, flouts it.” -WaPo
The ruling comes after US District Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee, rejected several defenses – including that Trump had claimed executive privilege over his former adviser’s testimony and documents – and limited Bannon’s team to the issue of whether he understood the deadlines for responding to lawmakers. Nichols stopped Corcoran twice on Friday, after the defense attorney began to argue over the legitimacy of the subpoena.
His attorneys have indicated that he will appeal on the basis that Nichols’ rulings that a defendant charged with contempt of Congress cannot claim they were relying on the advice of counsel, or that they believed their cooperation was barred by a president’s executive privilege claims.
The trial of Stephen K. Bannon is a farce in which the federal judiciary is validating an unlawful, unconstitutional, McCarthyist witch hunt that is violating due process and civil liberties for the purposes of destroying the political opposition.
I hold no special brief for Bannon, who left Breitbart News more than four years ago. I also opposed the January 6 protest — not just the riot, but the peaceful part — in advance, because I believed Congress could not reject an Electoral College vote.
What I find alarming about the Bannon trial is that after the defense was barred from bringing up the legal problems with the subpoena Bannon was issued, Judge Carl Nichols allowed the prosecution to make a case about the validity of the subpoena.
The first prosecution witness, Kirsten Amerling, is the chief counsel for the January 6 Committee. She was not just called as a fact witness, but specifically to offer her legal opinion about the subpoena — a task that properly belongs to Judge Nichols.
While Amerling was allowed to testify that, in her view, the subpoena was urgent, the defense was not allowed to ask if it was validly issued at all, given that Democrats barred certain Republicans from the committee, which has no ranking member.
Recall that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rejected the minority’s chosen ranking member, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), as well as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) — the first time in history the majority has denied the minority the right to choose its representatives.
Pelosi did that for two reasons. First, she did not want Republicans, much less supporters of former President Donald Trump, to have strong, effective dissenting voices. Second, Democrats intended to call Jordan and other Republicans as witnesses.
Democrats wanted to implicate them in a “coup,” when all they did was what committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and other members of the committee once did: object to the certification of Electoral College votes from certain states.
The result is that the committee lacks the requisite number of members — seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans, rather than eight Democrats and five Republicans, and has no ranking member, as Thompson himself has admitted publicly.
Without a ranking member, according to House rules and to the committee’s own enabling resolution, the committee cannot issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to provide testimony or documents. This is a vital protection against abuses of power.
Nevertheless, Democrats have held depositions, under threat of prosecution, behind closed doors, selectively editing what the public can see — often distorting what witnesses have said, even 480 ones, damaging their reputations and rights.
Judge Nichols apparently believes that Congress can do what it likes with its own committees — that the Political Question Doctrine and separation of powers prevent the courts from interfering in the internal deliberations of the legislative branch.
However, in this case the January 6 Committee is, in effect, asking the executive branch to play a role in legislative affairs by enforcing its subpoenas — subpoenas issued issued by a partisan, one-sided committee that has flouted witnesses’ civil rights.
Moreover, the executive branch, through the Department of Justice, has created the impression of a double standard by prosecuting Bannon for contempt after letting Democrats like Eric Holder and Lois Lerner evade prosecution in the past.
Prosecutors cannot explain why they are targeting Bannon (or Trump adviser Peter Navarro), other than citing social media posts by Bannon on Gettr. In effect, Bannon and Navarro are being targeted for speaking everywhere but to the committee.
Yet that only highlights the fact that the information the committee seeks is largely publicly available. Navarro has spoken about January 6 to the media; Bannon did so on his podcast.
If any laws were broken, the DOJ itself can compel testimony. It does not need to hide behind a partisan Star Chamber or a Stalinist show trial whose aim is political, i.e. to prevent Trump from running in 2024.
The January 6 Committee presented what was supposed to be its final public hearing on Thursday. It was a one-sided and propagandistic presentation — one that made several provably false claims and quietly retracted earlier, sensational ones.
Toward the end, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) implied that Trump is a domestic enemy of the United States. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Trump should never hold office again. That is the true goal of the committee: to take that choice away from voters.
The Bannon trial sets a horrific precedent: that the majority can abuse its power, with judicial approval, concludes Joel B. Pollak.