Trump ally Steve Bannon indicted for contempt of Congress over Jan. 6 probe subpoena

A federal grand jury indicted former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on Friday on fees of contempt of Congress that stemmed from his refusal to adjust to a subpoena from Home lawmakers investigating the lethal Capitol riot.

Bannon is anticipated to show himself into regulation enforcement Monday and seem in court docket later that day, a regulation enforcement official advised NBC Information.

Bannon is the primary individual to face fees ensuing from the choose committee’s probe of the Jan. 6 invasion, when tons of of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol following months of Trump falsely claiming the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

In an announcement later Friday, committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., stated they’re considering contempt proceedings against another Trump ally — former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — for failing to comply with their subpoena.

Bannon, 67, faces two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to supply paperwork to the congressional investigators and refusing to take a seat for a deposition, the Division of Justice said in a press release.

A lawyer for Bannon advised the Home choose committee in October that he wouldn’t adjust to its subpoena as a result of Trump had instructed him to not produce any paperwork or testimony “regarding privileged materials.”

Bannon was a senior White Home advisor in the course of the first seven months of Trump’s single time period in workplace. He was fired by Trump years earlier than the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which is the topic of the choose committee’s investigation.

Thompson rejected the reference to government privilege, the doctrine that permits some government department officers to maintain some communications confidential, as an argument for noncompliance with a congressional subpoena.

The choose committee shortly thereafter despatched a contempt decision to the total Home of Representatives, which voted 229-209 to carry Bannon in contempt.

Every depend of contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor punishable by as much as one yr in jail and a most nice of $100,000.

A date has not but been set for Bannon to be arraigned in U.S. District Court docket for the District of Columbia.

“Since my first day in workplace, I’ve promised Justice Division staff that collectively we might present the American folks by phrase and deed that the Division adheres to the rule of regulation, follows the info and the regulation, and pursues equal justice underneath the regulation,” Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland stated within the DOJ’s press launch.

“At the moment’s fees mirror the Division’s steadfast dedication to those ideas,” Garland stated.

Along with claiming his allies’ testimony is doubtlessly protected by government privilege, Trump has asserted that privilege covers most of the White Home information being sought by the choose committee as a part of the Jan. 6 probe.

However President Joe Biden refused to invoke privilege over these information, prompting Trump to sue the committee in mid-October to dam the disputed paperwork.

A federal decide on Tuesday rejected the privilege arguments put ahead by Trump’s authorized staff, writing that Trump’s view “seems to be premised on the notion that his government energy ‘exists in perpetuity.’ … However Presidents should not kings, and Plaintiff is just not President.”

Trump appealed the case the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which granted a short lived injunction to withhold the discharge of the White Home information.

Trump, who by no means conceded the 2020 election to Biden, is hinting he’ll run for president once more in 2024.