Lawyers for Bannon dismissed Vaughn’s characterization, saying their client was still negotiating with the House Jan. 6 committee when he was accused of a crime. “No one ignored the subpoena,” said defense lawyer M. Evan Corcoran. “It’s called negotiation, it’s called accommodation.”
Bannon’s trial comes amid intense public focus on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by a pro-Trump mob, and lingering questions about who shares responsibility for the violence that sought to negate President Biden’s electoral victory.
The trial is being held in a federal courthouse blocks from Capitol Hill, where for the past month the Jan. 6 legislative committee has convened closely watched hearings showcasing the mayhem of that day and the events leading up to it. The next hearing, scheduled for Thursday evening, will focus on Trump’s actions while the Capitol was breached.
After Tuesday’s trial testimony ended, Bannon erupted outside the courthouse, blasting the head of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and repeating false claims that Trump, not Biden, was the true winner of the 2020 election.
“They’re charging me with a crime?” Bannon fumed. “Have the guts and the courage to show up here and say exactly why it’s a crime.”
It is highly unusual for a defendant to speak publicly outside court in the middle of his own trial, let alone criticize decisions about which witnesses appear. Bannon also predicted that Republicans would win back the House in November and create a new Jan. 6 committee that will function far differently than the existing panel, which he derided as a “show trial.”
In her opening statement, Vaughn told the jury that Bannon’s refusal to answer the committee’s questions, or provide lawmakers with any documents, was a serious violation. The committee had sought to get answers from Bannon about his conversations with Trump and others before and during Jan. 6.
“It wasn’t a request and it wasn’t an invitation. It was mandatory,” she said. By not cooperating, she added, Bannon prevented Congress from getting “the important information it needed from him to understand what happened on January 6, and to ensure it never happens again.”
Wearing one dark button-down shirt over another, a black suit jacket and a black mask, Bannon, 68, leaned forward at the defense table and listened intently. It’s not the first time the pugilistic media personality has faced federal charges — he was previously accused in New York of participating in a fraudulent fundraising scheme, but Trump pardoned him before he went to trial.
Bannon’s trial on two counts of contempt of Congress is the most high-profile to emerge so far from the various probes surrounding the riot and its aftermath, even though the case is not about the events of Jan. 6 themselves. The facts at issue are quite narrow — whether Bannon’s alleged refusal to cooperate or communicate with the committee amounted to a crime.
One question will be Bannon’s claim he thought the committee would have to negotiate with him and that its deadlines were flexible once he asserted that he couldn’t provide answers or documents to the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. That claim that has…
Read More: Openings in Bannon trial debate whether skipping subpoena was a crime
