Bannon charged with contempt over Jan. 6 defiance
What happened
A defiant Steve Bannon surrendered to federal authorities and appeared in court this week, after the former President Trump adviser was indicted on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to cooperate with the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Bannon vowed in combative terms to fight the charges, escalating a battle between the committee and the former president, who has refused to cooperate and directed his former associates to do likewise. “They took on the wrong guy this time,” said Bannon, who cast the prosecution as a politically motivated gambit by an “illegitimate” administration. “We’re taking down the Biden regime.” After the 2020 election, Bannon took part in a “war room” set up by Trump associates to find a way to overturn the election results, and on Jan. 5, he said on a podcast, “All hell is going to break loose” tomorrow. The House committee is trying to determine whether the Trump administration and Republican officeholders were involved in planning and abetting the violent Capitol invasion.
The Justice Department’s decision to pursue charges against Bannon marked a victory for the Democrat-dominated panel, which so far has privately interviewed some 200 witnesses. The panel has subpoenaed 35 people, including many former senior Trump aides, among them chief of staff Mark Meadows—who last week failed to appear for a deposition—press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and Trump body man turned top adviser Johnny McEntee. Bannon’s indictment “should send a clear message to anyone who thinks they can ignore the Select Committee or stonewall our investigation,” said Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Republicans rallied around Bannon, accusing Democrats of weaponizing the Justice Department and vowing to compel testimony from Biden aides if they regain the House next year.
In a newly released interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Trump defended supporters who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” during the insurrection, saying it was “common sense” given Pence’s refusal to deny certification of the Electoral College vote. “The people were very angry,” Trump said. “How can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”
What the editorials said
“The Select Committee no doubt has partisan motives,” said The Wall Street Journal, but Bannon “has no legal standing to dodge a lawful subpoena.” Trump’s claim of executive privilege is especially specious given that Bannon left the White House three years earlier and was a private citizen in 2020. Congress’ institutional power to conduct investigations “needs to be vindicated”—and Republicans who are complaining now will feel differently when they’re back in power.
Many disturbing details have emerged since “that terrible day,” said The Washington Post, including the extent of efforts to “strong-arm” Pence and a “cascade of warnings” of potential violence that were ignored by the FBI and law enforcement. But many key questions remain. How did rioters appear to know which Capitol windows had not been modernized and would be easy to breach? What did Trump do during the “horrific 187 minutes” that passed between when he beseeched his followers to march on the Capitol and when he “begrudgingly” called them off? Finding answers is critical in assuring “that nothing like Jan. 6 will happen again.”
What the columnists said
Bannon’s indictment “is a game changer” for the investigation, said Chris Cillizza in CNN.com. The first person charged with contempt of Congress since 1983, Bannon was hit with two counts that could each fetch a year in prison. Attorney General Merrick Garland has sent a strong message to other holdouts “that the stakes for noncompliance are now very serious.”
Garland’s pursuit of this weak case may have been “met with glee in the media-Democrat complex,” said Andrew McCarthy in National Review.com, but it won’t ever land Bannon in the witness chair. Even if it did, he could simply take the Fifth. Bannon’s pointless prosecution will only serve to confirm “that the Biden/Garland Justice Department is a crude weapon of the political left.”
Bannon doesn’t have a leg to stand on legally, but “he knows exactly what he’s doing,” said David Frum in TheAtlantic.com. He and other Jan. 6 plotters are like right-wing versions of the Chicago Seven, and their radical strategy is purely political: to discredit and undermine the “legal and constitutional system” that “once bound U.S. society”—a system Trumpists have already badly eroded.
“American democracy is entering a strange and perilous period,” said David Rohde in NewYorker.com. As Bannon’s case plays out, “Americans will have to decide whether his theatrics are a threat to democracy, performative branding, or a mix of both.” Such cases can take up to a year, said former Justice Department official David Laufman, though there’s “substantial federal interest” in moving quickly. As Laufman said, “What can be of greater interest than an attack on the heart of democracy in the United States?”