Comment Jury selection is underway in the federal trial of Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser and right-wing podcaster charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a Jan. 6 House committee order. to turn over records and testify about his actions in the run-up to the attack on the US Capitol. The committee issued a subpoena to Bannon saying it wanted to question him about activities at the Willard Hotel the night before the riot, when supporters of President Donald Trump tried to persuade Republican lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election results. The committee said Bannon spoke to Trump by phone that morning and evening, the last time Bannon predicted that “all hell would break loose” on January 6. The commission’s report recommending that he be found in contempt said the comments indicated he “had some premonition of extreme events that would occur the next day.” Refusing to testify and turn over records, Bannon claimed executive privilege and his lawyer said he had been contacted by Trump lawyer Justin Clarke and instructed not to respond. However, arguments about executive privilege are not expected to be the focus of the trial. During a pretrial hearing this month, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols rejected several of Bannon’s defenses, including a claim of executive privilege and limited Bannon’s defenses at trial primarily to whether he understood the deadlines for responding to lawmakers’ requests. Nichols agreed with prosecutors’ argument that, under binding legal precedent, Bannon’s reasons for not complying with the House committee’s subpoenas were irrelevant if he willfully ignored them. The judge also disputed that former President Trump claimed executive privilege for Bannon or that he would cover the conversations in question because the latter left the White House in 2017 and was private at the time. Facing trial, Bannon vows to go ‘medieval’, but judge says meh A former media executive who boasted of creating a “platform for the alt-right,” Bannon has championed a “populist-nationalist” movement since chairing Trump’s campaign for part of 2016. While he has denied responsibility for January 6 uprising by Trump supporters, he considered himself the ideological architect of the efforts to subvert the election and the January 6 Trump rally. His trial comes amid heightened interest in hearings the commission held Jan. 6 to investigate the 2021 Capitol breach. Misdemeanor contempt charges are punishable by at least 30 days in jail or up to one year after conviction. But the three perpetrators who pleaded guilty to the rarely charged crime of withholding information from Congress dating back to the 1990s have been suspended in plea deals with US prosecutors. This story will be updated. Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.
