Jury selection is slated to begin Monday in the long-awaited trial of Steve Bannon, an ex-adviser to former President Donald Trump, over his defiance of a House Jan. 6 committee subpoena.
Already, there are some indications that Bannon’s team is jittery about its prospects while prosecutors appear confident the trial will go their way. Either way, the trial is expected to give answers to the months of skirmishes between the Jan. 6 committee and Trump confidants about the bounds of congressional subpoena power.
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For months, Bannon and other Trump allies, such as former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro, have argued that Trump’s assertion of executive privilege dwarfs the legal sway of a congressional subpoena. Now, Bannon’s trial will serve as an important test for that theory, and the outcome could be a harbinger of whether other Trump allies decide to comply with the committee.
“Pray for our enemies, because we’re going medieval on these people. We’re gonna savage our enemies. Who needs prayers? Certainly not Steven Bannon,” the former Trump adviser proclaimed on his War Room podcast last week.
The former chief strategist and senior counselor to the president has made several bold declarations throughout the course of his squabble with the Jan. 6 committee. Last November, when he was first indicted on contempt of Congress charges, he derided the “misdemeanor from hell” after livestreaming his public surrender to authorities.
Still, there have been some indications that his defense team is a bit uneasy about its case. Last week, the defense team was dealt a string of setbacks. His lawyers sought a delay in the trial, arguing the televised Jan. 6 committee hearings could prejudice public opinion against him and affect jury impartiality, a request U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee overseeing the case, rejected.
Making matters worse for the former Trump adviser, the Justice Department declared last week that Trump never invoked executive privilege over material specific to Bannon. Executive privilege is expected to be a core tenet of his defense. A day prior, Bannon offered to testify before the panel, claiming Trump sent him a letter noting that he would waive his executive privilege.
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In April, Nichols shot down a key “advice of counsel” defense strategy Bannon’s legal team sought to deploy in the trial, which held that Bannon did not comply with the subpoena because he was acting on the advice of his lawyers. Nichols cited court precedents to disqualify that argument and blocked Bannon’s team from bringing forward certain big-name witnesses, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Robert Costello, Bannon’s lawyer, has expressed an eagerness to defend Bannon as a witness, though it is not clear he would be permitted to do so as a lawyer for Bannon. As a result, Costello filed a motion about two weeks ago seeking to withdraw as Bannon’s attorney. It remains unclear if the judge will approve that request.
Meanwhile, prosecutors appear confident in their case, previously writing in court documents that they anticipate only needing one day of testimony to make their argument against him.
“The government anticipates that its case-in-chief will consist of one day of testimony,” prosecutors wrote in a filing last year.
Bannon is facing criminal contempt charges alongside Navarro, who similarly bucked a committee subpoena earlier this year. Notably, prosecutors declined to prosecute two other Trump allies, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, who were also held in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas.
Differentiating Bannon from Meadows, Scavino, and Navarro is the fact that Bannon was not on staff at the White House during the time period in which the committee expressed interest. The panel was interested in documents from Bannon because he attended meetings at the Willard Hotel, which served as a “command center” for Trump allies to challenge the election. Bannon also predicted mayhem on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the riot ensued.
“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon warned in a podcast episode a day before the riot. “It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack.”
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The Jan. 6 committee is poised to deliver one of its most anticipated public hearings of the summer. The hearing, scheduled for Thursday, its second public hearing in prime time, will focus on Trump’s actions while rioters stormed the Capitol. Over the weekend, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) teased it will “open people’s eyes in a big way,” and other members also teased the Thursday hearing during the most recent public hearing last week.
Bannon is facing two contempt charges for failing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. If convicted, he could face between 30 days and one year in prison per charge. The trial will take place in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
