WASHINGTON — As his criminal trial for contempt of Congress approaches, Stephen K. Bannon, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump who was implicated in his plans to reverse the 2020 election, has charged the House committee responsible for the attack. at the Capitol investigation, informed that he is now prepared to testify, according to two letters obtained by DailyExpertNews.
His decision marks a remarkable turnaround for Mr Bannon, who had been one of the committee’s most stubborn and rebellious potential witnesses until Saturday. He had promised to turn the criminal case against him into the “misdemeanor from hell” for the Justice Department.
But with the possibility of two years in prison and hefty fines on the horizon, Bannon has been cleared by Trump to testify, his attorney told the committee late Saturday in a letter previously reported by The Guardian.
The former president had previously instructed Mr. Bannon and other associates not to cooperate with the panel, alleging that administrative law — a president’s power to withhold certain internal information from the executive branch, especially confidential communications involving him or her his top employees were involved – forced them to remain silent. But in recent days, as several witnesses came forward to give the House panel damning testimony about his conduct, Mr. Trump became frustrated that one of his fiercest defenders has not yet appeared before the committee, people close to him said. stood him.
“Mr. Bannon is willing, and even prefers, to testify at your public hearing,” Robert J. Costello, Mr. Bannon’s attorney, wrote to Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson and the committee chair. .
Key Revelations from the January 6 Hearings
Mr Costello said Mr Bannon’s decision to comply with the commission’s subpoena came after he was authorized by Mr Trump to testify. He provided the panel with a letter Mr. Trump sent to Mr. Bannon on Saturday, waiving any claim to executive privilege for his testimony or documents relevant to the subpoena.
“Our stance on the commission remains unchanged, but President Trump wants Mr. Bannon to tell the commission the truth,” Costello said on Sunday. He said Mr Bannon intended to provide the committee with both documents and testimony.
The Commission and the Justice Department have long maintained that Mr. Trump has no valid executive privilege claim over Mr. Bannon’s testimony, in part because Mr. Bannon left the White House in 2017 and was a private individual when he was involved in the Mr Bannon. Trump’s Efforts to Stay in Power After the 2020 Election
“When you first received the subpoena to testify and provide documents, I appealed to administrative law,” Trump wrote in his letter to Bannon on Saturday. “However, I have seen how unfairly you and others have been treated, huge amounts of money spent on legal fees and all the trauma you have to go through out of love for your country and out of respect for the office of the president.”
“Therefore,” he went on, “if you agree on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive the administrative privilege for you, whereby you may go in and testify truthfully and honestly, at the request of the non- selected committee of political thugs and hacks.”
Bannon’s trial on two charges of criminal contempt of Congress is set for July 18. Each charge carries a jail term of up to one year and a $100,000 fine.
It remains to be seen how Mr Bannon’s new stance will affect the criminal proceedings, and how fast he will be. He might refuse to speak on certain topics, citing his Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, as some other witnesses have done. But the commission has repeatedly said it needs to hear from Mr Bannon and receive the documents it has requested from him about plans to reverse the 2020 election.
“We got a letter from his attorney about midnight that he would testify, and we wanted him to testify,” California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat and committee member, told DailyExpertNews on Sunday. “So obviously the committee hasn’t had a chance to discuss it yet, but I expect we’ll hear from him. And there are a lot of questions we have for him.”
Should Bannon eventually appear for an interview, he would give his testimony behind closed doors, as hundreds of other witnesses have done, Ms Lofgren said. The committee has carefully choreographed its public hearings to create a streamlined presentation of its case, and has made efforts to avoid public sparring sessions with witnesses.
For months, Mr. Bannon may have been the most bombastic and strident potential witness the committee has called to testify. He refused to turn over a single document or testify for a minute. Because of his intransigence, the House voted in October to hold Bannon on criminal contempt for Congress.
But the panel has insisted that Mr. Bannon, the former chief strategist and adviser to Mr. Trump, could help investigators better understand the January 6, 2021 attack, which was intended to stop the certification of President Biden’s victory.
On his radio show on Jan. 5, 2021, Mr Bannon promised that “all hell will break loose tomorrow,” a statement showing that he had “some inside information about extreme events to take place the following day,” the commission said. in a report.
Investigators also pointed to a conversation Mr. Bannon had with Mr. Trump on Dec. 30, 2020, in which he urged him to focus his efforts on Jan. 6, the day Congress would make the official count of the electoral votes to confirm the victory. from mr. Biden. mr. Bannon also attended a rally at the Willard Hotel in Washington the day before the violence, when plans were discussed to try to reverse the election results the following day.
The criminal case of Mr. Bannon is just the last one against him.
Federal prosecutors indicted and arrested him in Manhattan in 2020 on charges of money raised to promote the construction of the border wall Trump had long sought. But before his trial, he was granted a preemptive pardon by Mr Trump just hours before the former president left office.