Steve Bannon says he's willing to testify before January 6 committee after Trump waives claims of ex
Source: CNN
Steve Bannon who defied a congressional subpoena and is set to go to trial on criminal contempt charges told the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection on Saturday that he is now willing to testify, ideally at a public hearing, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
Bannons reversal comes after he received a letter from former President Donald Trump waiving executive privilege, although both the House select committee and federal prosecutors contend that privilege claim never gave Bannon carte blanche to ignore a congressional subpoena in the first place.
Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. He has argued that he was free to ignore his congressional subpoena in order to protect Trumps potential privilege claims. But federal prosecutors and other legal experts have argued that privilege does not apply to Bannon who left his White House gig as chief strategist years before the Capitol riot and did not give him the authority to refuse to provide any documents or testimony to the committee.
Bannons team provided Trumps new letter to the January 6 committee overnight, along with a letter from Bannon lawyer Bob Costello.
While Mr. Bannon has been steadfast in his convictions, circumstances have now changed, Costello wrote. Mr. Bannon is willing to, and indeed prefers, to testify at your public hearing.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/10/politics/steve-bannon-trump-january-6-executive-privilege/index.html
Rats.. ship.. sinking..
Beachnutt
(8,909 posts)in your orange jumpsuit..
33taw
(3,343 posts)chowder66
(12,241 posts)vanlassie
(6,248 posts)hes nuts. Because, hes nuts.
flying_wahini
(8,275 posts)IA8IT
(6,424 posts)CrispyQ
(40,969 posts)At this point he just wants to put on a show, not provide meaningful testimony. Nope.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)TheRealNorth
(9,647 posts)He wants to make a circus/mockery of it, because there really isn't any penalty if he squats and takes a shit in the middle of the proceedings.
hibbing
(10,597 posts)iluvtennis
(21,497 posts)cayugafalls
(5,960 posts)pandr32
(14,272 posts)TeamProg
(6,630 posts)madashelltoo
(1,829 posts)TESTALYING!
iluvtennis
(21,497 posts)Rebl2
(17,740 posts)you have created a new word! Good job!
BumRushDaShow
(169,749 posts)COL Mustard
(8,218 posts)Trump voluntarily gave up privilege? I thought it was just a thunderstorm last night. I guess it was really Hell freezing over!!!!
GB_RN
(3,560 posts)Court cases have already said that it's only available for the current office holder. To which Biden subsequently waived it for the documents Dolt45 was claiming privilege over.
But as others have stated, 1) it's too little, too late for Bannon, 2) no one wants to give him the opportunity to act as a Trojan horse, or use it as an attempt to sabotage/weasel out of or otherwise undermine his contempt prosecution (and thus render any future prosecutions meaningless).
COL Mustard
(8,218 posts)Im just shocked that hes even doing this!
I may need my fainting couch!
Response to COL Mustard (Reply #38)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Donnie is scared shitless..he needs a spy, a voice, a defender, and he sees Bannon as that guy...his Jim Jordan, caustic, insulting, never-ending screeching toxic blather...and Bannon, pissing his pants and about to go to trial on criminal contempt charges, is suddenly more than willing to hiss, sneer, threaten, accuse, and malign the validity of committee and blow up witness testimony..and do it publicly...WHAT A GUY!!
and I'll wager the committee never ever intended to put Bannon in front of camera...why would they, given Bannon, like Navarro, is neck deep in the coup to overthrow the government of the United States and more than likely facing a federal sedition charge
reACTIONary
(7,162 posts)... testify rather than spend time in the slammer, so he did this to make himself look like a good guy.
Eliot Rosewater
(34,285 posts)He needs to testify off camera or on camera but not live because hes simply going to turn it into a circus, hes betting that the fascists will get back in to power and he will be at the top.
It would be madness.
FakeNoose
(41,631 posts)Plus his lawyer Robert Costello just resigned the contempt case that's going to trial, and that really looks bad for Bannon. However I agree with you that Bannon cannot demand a public hearing, none of the other witnesses are getting that. They've all testified in private and the J-6 committee decides what goes public.
(link) https://news.yahoo.com/steve-bannon-lawyer-asks-removed-152059625.html
BumRushDaShow
(169,749 posts)And I saw that posted about Friday too!
RussBLib
(10,635 posts)Better late than never. Maybe.
snip
Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to his contempt charges, was set to go to trial July 18. Providing testimony would not necessarily absolve him of the criminal contempt charges he faces, so it's unclear how his upcoming trial would be affected if Bannon strikes a deal with the committee to testify. He is set to appear in court for a hearing in his case Monday.
BumRushDaShow
(169,749 posts)I expect Navarro may eventually do the same - "comply" and feed the Committee with bullshit.
But in both their cases, they need to do it under oath or go to trial.
stevebreeze
(1,882 posts)This is what Bannon is aiming for.
"A Federal judge dropped all charges today against Oliver L. North, bringing to an abrupt end the five-year prosecution of the former National Security Council aide that was the most celebrated and hotly contested legal battle of the Iran-contra affair.
"This terminates the case," Judge Gerhard A. Gesell said at a brief hearing in United States District Court. He ruled after Lawrence E. Walsh, the Iran-contra independent prosecutor, said he would abandon the prosecution of Mr. North, a former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. Mr. Walsh said prosecutors probably would be unable to show that the trial testimony used to convict Mr. North had not been affected by testimony Mr. North had given to Congress under immunity."
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/17/us/judge-in-iran-contra-trial-drops-case-against-north-after-prosecutor-gives-up.html
Lasher
(29,576 posts)Surely they are coordinating with the DOJ on this.
BumRushDaShow
(169,749 posts)vs North and if anyone who might be considered for immunity, is Meadows.
Grins
(9,459 posts)05 July 1989. Got off on one of those technicalities the Reich-wing crowd hates. When it suits them.
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)that one must lie as much as needed to win, so Im assuming the J6C takes everything he says with a boulder of salt.
COL Mustard
(8,218 posts)Doesnt raise their blood pressure!
ashredux
(2,928 posts)MOMFUDSKI
(7,080 posts)his 2 shirts.
getagrip_already
(17,802 posts)as well. He would love a maggie and gym show.
Obvious85
(262 posts)It will be ALL SPIN, ALL PROPAGANDA, period. A turd cannot change with a squirt of perfume
Joinfortmill
(21,162 posts)Inside Steve Bannons apocalyptic ideology: Like [Karl] Rove on an acid trip
He may also be batshit crazy. Here's a sample:
(Josh Green) 'The way I initially got into this line of research for the book is I went and said [to Bannon], Hey, if youre not a racist and an anti-Semite Bannon of course claims not to be why is it that youre so drawn to these fascist nationalist ideologues from the 1930s and 1940s? People like Julius Evola, who was Mussolinis ideologist and who Bannon mentioned in a video at this Vatican conference that he spoke to in 2014...
(Bannon)...well, Im a nationalist and I went looking for intellectual underpinnings to support my philosophy. And the most prominent nationalist thinkers were guys like Julius Evola, who, while they had some very ugly beliefs and associations, were doing a lot of the thinking about nationalism...
(Josh Green) What attracted Bannon to them was this idea of decline. Guénons famous book was called Crisis of the Modern World, and it laid out this view that essentially beginning with the Enlightenment and the rise of modernity and the nation-state system, we in the West lost our connection to the esoteric, to God. And that we were entering a six-thousand-year dark age. Im trying to think how to explain this without sounding batshit crazy...
But either way, the kinds of stories he published at Breitbart are pretty consistent with the idea that the whole world is falling apart, the country is going to hell, these dangerous immigrants and criminals are kinda marauding through our culture, and meanwhile the secular PC liberals are turning a blind eye to it and destroying American identity and so on and so forth.
I dont see it as being necessarily at odds with what any of these crazy thinkers in the books are writing. Whats unsettling to me is the thought that maybe this isnt just intellectual preening; maybe he believes it.'
COL Mustard
(8,218 posts)Or at least the US is, because of people like Bannon!!!
SouthernDem4ever
(6,619 posts)so sick of that asshole.
Kid Berwyn
(24,395 posts)Destroying the administrative state isnt against the law when the pee-resident does it to protect the disappearing white male power grip will not replace blah blah blah blah.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)LudwigPastorius
(14,724 posts)Good luck sobering him up.
Tactical Peek
(1,419 posts)The recognized privilege of the executive resides with the executive, Joe Biden, not with some has-been, and Biden waived the executive privilege for this months ago. It was reported in the press, so you would think the press would know better than to be reporting this tripe from the former guy now as "waiving" anything - except his tiny little hands in the air beseeching attention and coverage.
Fuck this lying "coverage".
Brainfodder
(7,781 posts)How is that asshole not doing hard time for all the fraud, besides the pardon.
Kablooie
(19,107 posts)JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)New Breed Leader
(928 posts)nm
Shanti Shanti Shanti
(12,047 posts)Evolve Dammit
(21,774 posts)TeamProg
(6,630 posts)Shanti Shanti Shanti
(12,047 posts)TeamProg
(6,630 posts)perjure himself or he can tell the truth.
TFG does not know what's going to happen.
Samrob
(4,298 posts)"You are appearing in response to the subpoena issued .. You are appearing WITHOUT the waiver of executive privilege, which only the current President, Joe Biden can grant and has chosen to not do so. You are appearing under oath with all the judicial privileged afforded all citizens of the United States including the right to avoid self-incrimination."
ultralite001
(2,551 posts)Just saying...
That is all...
The Wizard
(13,735 posts)Make him testify while attached to a polygraph.
lees1975
(7,046 posts)and to attempt to counter all of the mountain of evidence they've accumulated. First of all, he doesn't have executive privilege to waive so they need to tear up that letter because it is meaningless. Second, if he doesn't testify on their terms, hold him until he does. But he gets no public forum. Ya hear that!
bucolic_frolic
(55,136 posts)tavernier
(14,443 posts)for both Bannon and Rudy.