Judge sets July date for Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress trial

A federal judge set a July trial date for former Trump aide Steve Bannon, charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to respond to a subpoena for his testimony from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Justice Department urged the judge to schedule the trial for April. Prosecutors said they would need only one day to present testimony. Bannon’s lawyers said the case presents novel issues involving executive privilege. They said the trial should not begin until mid-October and would likely take at least ten days.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols said the government wanted to move “at light speed” in a case that may present complicated issues. But he also said, “We don’t need ten months to do this.”

He scheduled the trial to begin July 18 and set aside two weeks on the calendar.

One of Bannon’s lawyers said the defense said needs time examine how the House Jan. 6 committee reached the decision to cite him for contempt of Congress.

David Schoen said Bannon offered to answer the committee’s questions if Congress filed a civil lawsuit against him and a judge ordered him to testify. But the committee chose instead to pursue a criminal charge. “By making that decision, they triggered a number of constitutional rights” that add to the complexity of the case.

It’s now clear that an important issue in the case will be whether Bannon can argue that he should not be convicted because he acted on the advice of his lawyer in refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoena.

Some federal courts have held that acting on the advice of counsel is a legitimate defense. Those courts have reasoned that someone must act with guilty intent to be convicted of a crime. But if a lawyer had advised a defendant to do something, and that advice was followed in good faith, then there was no criminal intent, those rulings have said.

The prosecutors said that defense is not available to this charge. But Schoen said, “We believe advice of counsel absolutely applies.” If the advice of counsel defense is allowed, then Bannon’s lawyer at the earlier stages in the case, Robert Costello, will be an important witness at the trial.

Judge Nichols said he would rule soon on how many restrictions will be placed on evidence turned over to Bannon’s lawyers by the government. Matthew Corcoran, another Bannon lawyer argued for as few restrictions as possible.

“We want the public to have the ability to see how the decisions were made in this case,” including by the Jan. 6 committee and by the federal grand jury that returned the indictment charging Bannon with contempt of Congress.