Steve Bannon shows up for court with a haircut and a shave for the judge, and a smile for the press: NAJ Screen Shot
By Glynn Wilson –
He might see himself as an Ollie North, or a G. Gordon Liddy. No matter. A jury in Washington, D.C. found Steve Bannon guilty as charged on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress, for refusing to cooperate in the Capitol attack investigation by turning over documents and testifying under oath about what he knew in advance about the seditious conspiracy that led to the violent insurrection on January 6, 2021.
He defied a legal subpoena to answer questions from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, trying to claim executive privilege, which did not wash in court.
He tried a last minute gambit to claim he was willing to testify after all, and even got a letter from Trump granting him permission. But that didn’t wash either, when the judge ruled that the case was simply about whether he understood the demands of the subpoena and the deadline for responding accordingly.
A federal jury deliberated for less than three hours on Friday before pronouncing him guilty on both counts.
U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols scheduled sentencing for Oct. 21. Each misdemeanor charge is punishable by at least 30 days and up to one year in jail, plus a maximum $1,000 fine.
While contempt may seem like a minor crime, considering everything else he’s guilty of in the interest of destroying American democracy, Bannon’s conviction is considered significant because he is the first close confidant of Trump’s to be found guilty for a crime related to the Capitol attack investigation.
Another former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, has also been charged with contempt after defying a subpoena from the committee and is scheduled to go on trial in November.
Bannon’s trial was indeed speedy and short, as predicted, and took only one week, most of it involving jury selection and brief opening and closing statements, and only a couple of witnesses for the prosecution. Bannon did not take the stand to testify and didn’t raise much of a defense, not calling a single witness on his behalf. His strategy was just to try bringing doubt into consideration on the deadline to testify.
The trial judge had vowed to keep it from becoming “a political circus,” although Bannon took the the microphone outside the courthouse every day and made incendiary speeches much like Trump, trying to cast doubts and put out an alt-right narrative into the ether and cyberspace.
Bannon made a brief cameo appearance in the eighth public hearing of the House Select Committee the night before in prime time, when the committee played an audio clip of Bannon foreshadowing the plan to cast doubt on the election outcome and start a “war” if necessary to install Trump in a second term.
Related: If Steve Bannon Wants a War…
At the time when he was indicted in November, the filing of charges was seen in Washington as a litmus test for whether the Justice Department would take an aggressive stance against any of Trump’s top cohorts and coconspirators. The committee is clearly laying the ground work for recommending charges against Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice, as indicated by Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney on ABC over the Fourth of July weekend.
Bannon’s guilt or innocence ultimately turned on a straightforward question: whether he had defied the House committee by flouting its subpoena.
“This case is not complicated, but it is important,” assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston said in her closing statement.
Gaston told the jury that the House committee had wanted to ask Bannon about his presence at the Willard Hotel before the Capitol attack and about his statement the day before the assault that “all hell” was going to break loose on Jan. 6.
Bannon blatantly disregarded the committee’s demands in order to protect his former boss.
“The defendant chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law,” she said.
The proceeding came down to the simple fact that Bannon had “thumbed his nose” at the law.
M. Evan Corcoran, one of Bannon’s lawyers, tried to argue that the subpoena had been improperly signed by the committee, claimed that Bannon had not intentionally failed to comply, and even tried to say the case was “politically motivated.”
The jury didn’t buy it.
Before court started on Friday, Bannon’s lawyers made a written request to Judge Nichols to ask the jurors if they had watched what the team described as the “highly inflammatory segment” of the Thursday night committee hearing that had featured Bannon.
Judge Nichols declined to poll the jurors.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the Democrat from Maryland, released a statement reacting to the verdict on Friday.
“Steve Bannon refused a subpoena from Congress and must face the consequences,” Hoyer said. “His guilty verdict is a reflection that the rule of law still matters in America, that witnesses called to testify before the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol must comply and share relevant information with investigators.
“I hope this verdict will encourage others who have been subpoenaed to speak with the committee and to answer all of its Member’s questions,” he said. “The American people deserve a full accounting of what led to that day and what transpired.”
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