Bannon's fight with Jan. 6 committee spills into contempt trial

Jan. 6 committee recommends property Bannon in contempt

The committee wants his "specific knowledge about the events" of January. 6.

The House select commission investigating the January. six Capitol riot on Tuesday moved to punish Trump adviser Steve Bannon, recommending the full House hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a amendment for records and testimony.

The 9-fellow member console voted unanimously Tuesday evening to transport a study recommending contempt charges to the full Firm. If approved by the total chamber, the matter would so be referred to the Justice Section to determine whether to pursue criminal charges. Business firm Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said a full House vote would come up Thursday.

"Our goal is simple: nosotros want Mr. Bannon to answer our questions," Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in the coming together. "We want him to plough over any records he possesses that are relevant to the select commission'south investigation. The effect in front of the states today is our ability to practise our job."

In a statement, the U.South. Attorney's Part for the District of Columbia said, "If the House of Representatives certifies a criminal contempt citation, the Department of Justice, as with all criminal referrals, will evaluate the matter based on the facts and the constabulary, consistent with the Principles of Federal Prosecution."

Afterward President Joe Biden said recently that the Justice Department should prosecute Bannon, White House press secretary Jen Psaki attempted to distance the White House from that activity, telling reporters on Mon that Biden "believes it's an contained decision that should be made by the Section of Justice."

The matter could take months, if not years, to litigate, and could effect in a fine of upward to $100,000 and up to one year in prison.

Robert Costello, Bannon's chaser, told committee members that his customer would non cooperate with the probe given Trump'due south executive privilege concerns, or without a court order to practice so.

"Though the Select Committee welcomes good-faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate with our investigation, we will not permit whatever witness to defy a lawful amendment or try to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal antipathy of Congress referral," Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a statement earlier this month.

Thompson said Bannon "stands solitary in his complete disobedience" of the commission.

"We accept reached out to dozens of witnesses. We are taking in thousands of pages of records. We are conducting interviews on a steady footing," he said.

The committee'southward report argues that the commission's efforts to seek information from Bannon are justified because he "had specific knowledge about the events planned for January 6th before they occurred."

"Mr. Bannon was a private denizen during the relevant time period and the testimony and documents the Select Commission is demanding do not concern discussion of official government matters with the President and his immediate advisors," the panel wrote in the study, in response to Trump's claims of privilege.

Former White Firm Master Strategist Steve Bannon exits the Manhattan Federal Court on Aug. xx, 2020, in the Manhattan borough of New York.

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images, FILE

Cheney, ane of two Republicans on the committee, said that Bannon and Trump's claims of privilege "suggest that President Trump was personally involved in the planning and execution of January 6th."

She also warned Republicans that Trump's continued lies about widespread election fraud are "a prescription for national cocky-destruction."

"You know that at that place is no evidence of widespread election fraud sufficient to overturn the election; you know that the Rule voting machines were not corrupted by a foreign power. You know those claims are false. However President Trump repeats them almost daily," she said.

"The American people must know what happened. They must know the truth. All of us who are elected officials must do our duty to foreclose the dismantling of the rule of law, and to ensure zip like that dark 24-hour interval in January e'er happens once more," Cheney said.

Several other former Trump aides and assembly, including former White House chief of staff Marking Meadows and Kashyap Patel, who served equally a senior Pentagon official, go on to negotiate with the commission over cooperation subsequently receiving subpoenas.

It's not articulate if Dan Scavino, one of Trump's longest-serving aides, will cooperate with the panel's investigation.

On Monday, the old president announced he was suing the committee, also equally the National Athenaeum, to block lawmakers from receiving Trump White House records.

The Biden administration had refuted Trump's of claim executive privilege, proverb that the invocation "is non in the best interests of the Us," White House counsel Dana Remus wrote in a letter to the National Archives.

As a result, the National Archives notified Trump's attorney concluding week that it planned to plough over dozens of records to the committee on Nov. 12, "absent any intervening court society."

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jan-committee-expected-recommend-holding-bannon-contempt/story?id=80666756

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