The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol will vote Tuesday evening on whether to advance an effort to hold former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with its investigation.
If the vote passes — and it is expected to easily — the matter will then go before the full House of Representatives for a vote. If it passes there, a criminal referral would be sent to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. A conviction could mean a year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000.
Bannon refused to comply earlier this month with the committee’s subpoena demanding that he testify and hand over relevant documents about the riot and the effort to delay the electoral vote count, citing former President Donald Trump’s attempt to claim “executive and other privileges.”
The committee’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said last week the panel “will not tolerate defiance of our subpoenas” and would initiate contempt proceedings against Bannon.
On Monday, Bannon’s attorney Robert Costello requested a one-week delay on the vote given a lawsuit Trump filed against the committee seeking to block it from getting White House documents from the National Archives. Thompson refused the request Tuesday, saying it was “immaterial” because Bannon is not involved in the suit.
A report by the Jan. 6 committee on Bannon’s actions noted that Trump fired Bannon from the White House in 2017, and that he was a private citizen during the period of time he was consulting with Trump and others in his circle during the run up to the assault on the Capitol.
The report cited a Supreme Court ruling that executive privilege “belongs to the Government and must be asserted by it; it can neither be claimed nor waived by a private party.” It also noted that Bannon refused to offer any testimony or documents at all, not just on matters directly relating to Trump.
“Mr. Bannon’s refusal to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena in any way represents willful default under the law and warrants contempt of Congress and referral to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution as prescribed by law. The denial of the information sought by the subpoena impairs Congress’s central powers under the United States Constitution,” the report says.
The panel said there’s evidence that Bannon “had specific knowledge about the events planned for January 6th before they occurred,” and pointed to comments Bannon made on his podcast the day before the riot.
“It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. OK, it’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. All I can say is, strap in,” Bannon said at one point. “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. [. . .] So many people said, ‘Man, if I was in a revolution, I would be in Washington.’ Well, this is your time in history.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
