Steve Bannon tries to torpedo his trial

Steve Bannon, upon arrival at the court this Tuesday, in Washington. SHAWN THEW (EFE)

Steve Bannon likes to live on the edge.

But this time he crossed it.

The limit was the trial that began Monday at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse in Washington.

Former adviser and pygmalion of Donald Trump, involved in an incendiary speaker of the American radical right with a successful podcast called

is accused of two counts of contempt, for refusing 10 months ago to testify before the Congressional committee investigating the attack on the Capitol of the January 6, 2021.

At the last minute he announced a couple of weeks ago that he had changed his mind, because Donald Trump had finally given him permission, and said that he was ready to appear before the nine members of the House of Representatives who are scheduled to celebrate their eighth this Thursday. (and, for the moment, last) session, in prime time and everything indicates that without the presence of its president, the Democrat from Mississippi Bennie Thompson, who has tested positive for coronavirus.

But it was too late.

This time the trick (getting a postponement of the trial until October) did not work out for the great conjurer of populism.

The process got under way, but Bannon and his lawyers seem determined at the moment to obstruct a trial that could lead to a prison sentence of between two months and a year.

On Monday he went to select the jury, a thorny issue in this case.

The defense deployed there the first of its tactics designed to torpedo the process.

There were 60 citizens summoned;

and the thing was at 22 at the end of the day.

It was left for the next day to reduce the payroll to 12. The defense tried to rule out anyone who had followed the sessions of the commission on January 6: since Washington is a city overturned with politics, and its inhabitants follow it with the passion who in other places is dedicated to sports or pop music, it is almost impossible to find someone

regarding the conclusions of the parliamentary investigation.

They were also asked if they think that this commission is a body guided by partisanship.

And there the answer is also tricky: if seven of its members are Democrats, compared to only two Republicans, it is because the Conservative Party tried to boycott the formation of a commission when the need for an investigation into those events in the inside the Capitol.

On Tuesday, lawyers for the man who pulled the strings of the Trump administration for its first six months tried to put new obstacles in the judge's way, with a challenge to the letters exchanged by Bannon and Thompson when the subpoena arrived for that talk about what happened on January 5 at the Willard, a fine hotel two blocks from the White House.

The commission handles phone records that suggest Bannon spoke to the still president on the phone at least twice the day before the attack.

After the first of the two conversations, Bannon said: “tomorrow all hell will break loose”, in reference to what could happen (and did happen) on January 6.

Members of the 1776 Restoration Movement demonstrate outside the courthouse where Steve Bannon is being tried on Monday.STEFANI REYNOLDS (AFP)

Bannon has walked to court both days, visibly relaxed and with that appearance of his of being perpetually laughing inside.

He waved to the swarm of journalists waiting for him.

Members of the 1776 Restoration Movement were also waiting, a recently created small group that plays with a reference to the date of the Declaration of Independence, defines itself as a "patriot" and seeks to recover the "constitutional republic and the return to a moral society."

On Tuesday, the populist ideologue showed up with a respectable copy of the

under his arm, hardly among the sources he regularly draws from on his

(war room), whose broadcasts have not been interrupted with the arrival of the trial.

Quite the contrary.

In his program he has been inviting his followers for days to see the documentary that CNN broadcast on Sunday

, an investigation into Bannon's role "in the formation and division of the American political system and the potential threat to the American democracy”.

It cannot be said that the protagonist of the film comes out especially favored, but Bannon, like Salvador Dalí, is one of those who believes that it is better that they speak ill of one than that they do not at all.

broadcast

specifically referred to the trial as "a show trial."

It is not the first time that Bannon defines his pending accounts with justice.

Last week he promised it would be a “medieval trial” and that the contempt of Congress charges against him would become a “misdemeanor from hell for [Attorney General] Merrick Garland, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and for [President] Joe Biden.”

Federal District Judge Carl J. Nichols, in charge of the case, is not willing to allow it, and has promised that the thing will be faster than the defense intends.

Lawyer David Schoen has complained about that.

Nichols, who was appointed by Trump, seems inclined to condemn Bannon, who was pardoned

on the conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering charges he was facing in a Manhattan court related to a fundraising scheme for the border wall with Mexico.

Last week, a recording obtained and published by the left-wing magazine

recorded on October 31, 2020, days before the elections, had to be added to the pile of conspiratorial evidence that accumulates against the former adviser.

In it, Bannon is heard saying that Trump was going to “declare his victory” without waiting for the outcome.

“He's going to do it.

But that doesn't mean he's the winner,” Bannon added to a group of people.

"He's just going to say he's won."

Despite evidence like that, if the Washington judge finds him guilty of contempt and sentences him, that will not mean, paradoxically, that he is required to testify before the committee.

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