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Steve Bannon, Trump's former senior adviser, accused of contempt of Congress - Walla! news

2021-11-13T06:56:26.397Z


The Justice Department has decided to prosecute the former president's associate for refusing to appear before a congressional committee investigating the Capitol assault. The maximum penalty for this offense is one year in prison, but the last time anyone was convicted of it was in the Watergate case. "No one is above the law"


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Steve Bannon, Trump's former senior adviser, is accused of disrespecting Congress

The Justice Department has decided to prosecute the former president's associate for refusing to appear before a congressional committee investigating the Capitol assault.

The maximum penalty for this offense is one year in prison, but the last time anyone was convicted of it was in the Watergate case.

"No one is above the law"

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  • Steve Bannon

  • United States

  • Donald Trump

Reuters

Saturday, 13 November 2021, 08:46

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Stephen Bannon, a senior adviser to former US President Donald Trump, was charged last night (Friday) with a criminal offense after he ignored a summons from a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, the Justice Department said.



Bannon refuses to cooperate with the House committee, which asks him for testimony and documents, citing Trump's insistence - which has already been rejected by one judge - that he has the right to keep the records under presidential confidentiality.

Refuses to cooperate.

Bannon in court, last year (Photo: Reuters)

Bannon, 67, was charged with one count of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify and second with refusing to provide documents.

Contempt of Congress is an offense punishable by up to one year in prison and a maximum fine of one hundred thousand dollars.



Justice Department spokesman Bill Miller said Bannon "is expected to turn himself in" Monday in Washington and appear in court for the first time that afternoon.



Trump is trying to stall the work of the commission, which is investigating his actions regarding riots in Congress, and he has instructed his former associates not to cooperate with him.

The charges against Bannon may bolster the commission's efforts to secure testimony and documents from other Trump associates.



Bannon's indictment was announced just hours after Trump's former White House chief of staff Mark Meduse refused to appear before the commission, which also endangers him in prosecuting Congress.

More on Walla!

Documents from the Trump administration will be forwarded to the January 6 commission of inquiry: "A president is not a king"

To the full article

Bannon was a senior adviser to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, and later served as the administration's chief strategist. He helped shape the right-wing populist notion of "America first," and the fierce opposition to immigration that shaped Trump's tenure.



He promoted a number of far-right elements and candidates in the United States and abroad, and continued to advise Trump even after leaving his official position in the White House in 2017. Bannon is a prominent figure in right-wing media circles and previously ran the far-right Breitbert News website.



"The indictment against Steve Bannon should send a clear message to anyone who thinks he can ignore the commission or try to stop our investigation: no one is above the law," Democratic lawmakers Benny Thompson and Republican Liz Cheney, who chair the commission, said in a statement.



Bannon has yet to respond to the indictment against him, the second being filed against him in less than a year and a half.

In August 2020 he was accused of donating to We Build the Wall, a private fundraising initiative to fund the construction of the wall along the border with Mexico.

He was arrested aboard a yacht belonging to a fleeing Chinese billionaire, but was pardoned by Trump before the end of his term.

Trump supporters in the Capitol (Photo: Reuters)

The House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, voted in favor of prosecuting Bannon for humiliating Congress last month. After the House of Representatives voted in favor of indicting Bannon, the decision passed to the Biden Ministry of Justice, headed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.



Garland said in a statement that his ministry "adheres to the rule of law, monitors the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law." The last time anyone was convicted of contempt of Congress was in 1974, when G. Gordon Lydie, one of those involved in the Watergate affair that prompted President Richard Nixon to resign, was found guilty.


Most members of the Republican Party in Congress opposed the establishment of an independent committee or committee to investigate the January 6 events.



That day, a crowd of Trump supporters rioted on Capitol Hill in an attempt to thwart Joe Biden's victory in the election.

Before storming Congress, Trump delivered a belligerent speech to his supporters and reiterated his false claims that the election was stolen from him.

He urged them to go to the Capitol and "fight" to "stop the theft."



The commission said Bannon had issued public statements indicating that he knew in advance of "extreme events" that would take place on January 6.

The day before, Bannon had said in a podcast that "all hell is going to be released tomorrow."



Trump petitioned last month against the commission and the National Archives, which holds documents and records from his presidency, with the aim of keeping hundreds of documents secret.

A federal court rejected his petition this week, ruling that the public interest in knowing Trump's actions on Jan. 6 is of paramount importance, but an appeals court has temporarily frozen the move.

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Source: walla

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