After months of screeching, Steve Bannon had his day in court last week. He refused to testify, offered no witnesses or any real defense, and preened to reporters about cowardly House Committee members refusing to testify (even without calling any of them or acknowledging the judge’s rulings on that matter). It took a jury all of 3 hours to find him guilty of both counts. He is set to be sentenced in mid October – just before the mid terms.
<blockquote>Prosecutor Molly Gaston argued during the trial, which began on Monday, that Bannon “chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law.”
“When it really comes down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress’ authority or play by the government’s rules,” Gaston said. “Our government only works if people show up. It only works if people play by the rules. And it only works if people are held accountable when they do not.”</blockquote>
If memory serves, Bannon’s lawyer had the problem that the Judge wouldn’t let him lie in court.
“I would like to argue X as a defense”.
“X isn’t a defense, you can’t argue it”.
“How about Y?”
“Same.”
“Z?”
“Ditto”.
“…what am I supposed to argue here?”
“Not my problem”.Report
There is that.
I’ll be fascinated to see how this plays out for Peter Navarro who is similarly charged.Report
My understanding is the main legal strategy is to appeal to the Supremes, who will hold that the subject of the subpoena does indeed fall under executive privilege, so Bannon didn’t/doesn’t have to respond to it.Report
I don’t see how that will work because Bannon was subpoenaed to testify about things he did well after leaving the WH. Not that it will make a difference I suppose, but there’s also a ton of precedent that congressional subpoena’s are valid and you have to respond to them.
Interesting times to be sure.Report
The idea is to drag the process out for about 10 years and let him die of old age before he spends any time in prison.
Or maybe to get Trump back in the WH and get a pardon.Report
I believe he hoped he could drag the trail past the mid-terms so the subpoena would be quashed with a change in House control. His problem is the DoJ can and will continue prosecution and appeals until the WH changes . . . . And Trump didn’t pardon him on the way out, so expecting one now or later seems to be a bit of folly.Report
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.Report
Too bad he’ll probably only get 60 days in jail.Report