Former Donald Trump campaign manager in 2016 and gray eminence of the tenant of the White House during the first months of his mandate, Steve Bannon appeared on Monday July 18 in federal court in Washington. He will be judged there for “obstructing the investigative powers of Congress”, after refusing to testify before the House Inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Storming. He pleads not guilty. The trial, which is expected to last about a week, began today with the composition of the jury.
The procedure has already given rise to a skirmish between Mr. Bannon’s lawyers and the court, explains the correspondent of the Guardian in Washington, Hugo Lowell. The former have indeed “sought to delay the trial on the grounds that jurors might be swayed by the commission of inquiry hearings”, which are held at this very moment, not far from the court, precisely in the precincts of the Capitol attacked on January 6th. Judge Carl Nichols, however appointed by Trump, considered that “mere knowledge of these hearings was not a sufficient reason to be excluded” of the jury, nor to delay the trial, the subject of which is not January 6 but Mr. Bannon’s refusal to testify.
Escape justice and afford a platform
In October 2021, the commission had issued the sulphurous adviser a subpoena to testify and deliver documents, in particular on his activities at the Willard hotel the night before the riot. It had been established, recalls the Washington Postthan the one who today hosts a far-right podcast, The War Room, had spoken with Donald Trump by telephone, the morning and evening of January 5, after he predicted on his show that “hell was about to break loose”. He therefore had, according to the commission, “some foreknowledge of the extreme events that were to occur the next day”.
To justify his refusal to appear, Steve Bannon had claimed “executive privilege”, which his former employer allegedly conferred on him. An argument swept aside as much by parliamentarians as by Judge Nichols. In January 2021, Mr. Bannon “left the White House in 2017 and was just a private citizen”, insists the daily. All in his desire to escape justice, and especially to afford a political platform, Steve Bannon “also offered, just over a week before the start of the trial, to testify before the commission. Without however providing him with the requested documents”, says Ryan Lucas, the journalist specializing in justice for the public radio channel. NPR. Fortunately, federal prosecutors opposed the motion, which was far too late, deeming it “not relevant”.
Among the four collaborators of the former president accused of contempt of the Chamber, Bannon is for the moment the only one to be tried. Next on the list is ex-Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro. On the other hand, neither his chief of staff at the time Mark Meadows, nor his assistant Dan Scavino were charged following the recommendations of the commission. Fact “they both cooperated, to some extent”, note NPR.
Speed up the story
What will Bannon’s strategy be? His defense may have been undermined by the publication last week, by the investigative site Mother Jonesof a private audio document where the man exposes, before the presidential election of November 2020, the smoke strategy – “the big lie” – which the ousted president has been using since his defeat. “What Trump is going to do is just declare himself the winner, right? He’s going to declare himself the winner, but that doesn’t mean he won.” says Bannon, laughing. This document was recorded during a meeting between Bannon and half a dozen supporters of Guo Wengui, a Chinese tycoon in exile in the United States, whom the former editor of Breitbart helped create misinformation sites.
This trial, however, is not there to determine or not the guilt of the former president – whose actions, or rather the absence of actions during the 3 hours that the insurrection lasted on January 6, will be “examined minute by minute during a prime time hearing on Thursday“, welcomes CNN – but that of his liegeman, judged here for having “snubbed the parliamentary inquiry committee”. If he is found guilty at the end of the trial, he could be sentenced to thirty days to one year in prison, for each of the two counts. But would it be so serious for him? As the magazine notes Time“regardless of the outcome, Bannon will remain in the headlines. And that’s exactly where he wants to be”.
In a podcast from VoxSean Illing spoke at length with Jennifer Senior, also a journalist, who has just written for The Atlantic a resounding portrait of the character, titled “American Rasputin”. When the journalist Vox wonders if Bannon is indeed a “accelerationist who wants the destruction of the current political order”, his interlocutor can only agree: “if he really thought that history works in cycles, he would just watch it happen from afar, from the sidelines. But what he wants is to participate”.