Bannon urges Republicans to go ‘full Trump’ in his defence
As impeachment looms, Steve Bannon joins the debate, calling for a lengthy and provocative trial
STEVE BANNON has called for Republicans running the Senate impeachment trial to go “full Trump” by scheduling a string of witnesses helpful to the US president and allowing it to last for months.
Mr Bannon, who was Mr Trump’s 2016 election campaign manager, urged the party leadership to use their Senate majority – which gives them the power to set the trial’s rules – to ignore calls for a short hearing.
He told The Daily Telegraph that Joe Biden, the former US vice president, and his son, Hunter Biden, should be forced to give evidence – a provocative move sure to trigger a heated row with Democrats if adopted.
Mr Bannon also suggested a long trial would undermine the Democrat race to pick a presidential nominee, given some senators are running and would be forced to stay in Washington for the trial.
“He doesn’t want to be acquitted, he wants to be exonerated. There’s a big difference,” Mr Bannon said of what his former boss wants out of the trial.
“He’s not looking for a ‘not guilty’, he’s looking for a ‘you’re innocent and you did the right thing’.”
The suggestion comes with Mr Trump’s political fate hanging in the balance after he became only the third US president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives.
The issue now passes over to the Senate, the other half of the US
Congress, which will hold a trial about whether to convict Mr Trump and remove him from office in the new year.
That is unlikely to happen, given the Republicans – Mr Trump’s party – have a majority of seats in the Senate, and the support of two-thirds of senators is needed for removal to pass.
However there is debate raging between Republicans about how to approach the trial, with some favouring a quick, sober affair and others wanting a full-throated, colourful defence.
“I’m a strong advocate of going full Trump on this trial,” Mr Bannon told The Telegraph after the impeachment vote.
He added: “If it takes two months, it takes two months. If it takes three months… However long it takes, it takes. This is the trial of the century. “You don’t put time limits on trials.” Democrats are calling for witnesses to be allowed, specifically four people who were part of Mr Trump’s inner circle at the time of the Ukraine scandal.
Republican leadership on Capitol Hill has resisted that, something Mr Bannon thinks is a mistake.
He said Mr Biden, the Democrat who Mr Trump wanted investigated by Ukraine – the trigger for impeachment – should be put on the witness stand, along with his son, who once worked for a Ukrainian gas company.
The trial will be a moment of grand political spectacle, with the 100 senators sitting silently like a jury and the Supreme Court chief justice as judge.
It is expected to start in January and could disrupt some of the leading Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are senators and would have to attend every day.
Mr Bannon said this could bring political advantage for Republicans. “If you get called for jury duty, it is as long as the case takes. I don’t want to hear any crocodile tears from the Democrats.”
Other parts of Trump world believe they can turn impeachment – a historic black mark against his presidency – into a political advantage that can win over swing voters in the 2020 election.
Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for Mr Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, said the impeachment battle has fired up the president’s supporters. “Every piece of evidence there is shows that it is rebounding on the Democrats,” Mr Murtaugh claimed in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, pointing to polls that suggest independent voters are against removing Mr Trump from office.
He said that the Trump 2020 campaign received $5million in donations on the day of impeachment itself and that 600,000 new donors gave money to the campaign or the Republican National Committee since the Democrats first launched the inquiry in September. Democrats dispute that impeachment has backfired, believing moderate swing voters were shocked by the Ukraine scandal. Mr Trump landed in Florida on Friday night to spend Christmas at his seafront resort. But the President still found time to continue his attacks on Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives’ Democrat speaker, who is refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate before an agreement over the scope of the trial.