WASHINGTON — The prosecutor on Wednesday dropped his case in the trial of Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to President Donald J. Trump, as administration lawyers tried to show that Mr. Bannon had repeatedly ignored warnings that he was at risk of criminal prosecution. to be ignored in a subpoena.
Mr. Bannon was charged in November on two charges of contempt of Congress after he refused to provide information to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
Wednesday’s trial largely revolved around the testimony of Kristin Amerling, the deputy chief of staff and chief attorney for the commission dated Jan. 6, who detailed the commission’s attempts to force Mr. Bannon to testify last year.
“There had been a number of public reports that Mr Bannon had had contact with White House officials, including former President Trump, in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 events,” said Ms. Amerling. “We wanted to understand what he could tell us about the connection between these events.”
Prosecutors continued to describe Mr Bannon’s decision to oppose the commission as a clear case of contempt. By refusing to testify, Bannon not only “pushed his nose” at the law, but he may have withheld important information about the coordinated effort to disrupt certification of the 2020 election, said Amanda Vaughn, a district attorney. .
Key Revelations from the January 6 Hearings
During questioning, Ms Amerling told the court that Mr Bannon would not respond to the committee’s requests for emails and other documents, even after receiving a letter threatening legal action.
mr. Bannon never asked for an extension of the time limit for the subpoena, nor did the committee find his claim of executive privilege valid, Ms Amerling added.
The committee has repeatedly designated Mr. Bannon as the architect of a plan to cast doubt on whether Mr. Trump or Joseph R. Biden Jr. had gathered enough electoral votes to win the election, creating a scenario in which the House then had to decide the outcome.
In cross-examination, M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Mr. Bannon, portraying the charges as purely political, and, he seemed to suggest, driven by the whims of Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman.
The defense pointed to a July letter, in which Mr. Thompson appeared to be open to hearing testimony from Mr. Bannon, provided he also provided the committee with the requested documents. The letter lent credence to Mr Bannon’s claims, his lawyers said, that his contacts with the committee were open and that he had never formally ruled out speaking to committee members.
In his interrogation, Mr. Corcoran appeared to intend to portray Ms. Amerling as a political aide, urging her to provide details about her career with the Democrats on various congressional committees and her past political donations.
He spoke to Mrs. Amerling also mentioned a book club she attended, which also included another prosecutor in the case.
The prosecution objected to attempts by Mr Bannon’s lawyers to bring politics into the proceedings. Before the testimony even began on Wednesday, the judge in the case, Carl J. Nichols, warned the defense not to ask witnesses to speak to the motives of specific members of Congress.
“It is not my intention for this to become a political affair, a political circus, a forum for party politics,” the judge said.
Prosecutors also named Stephen Hart, an FBI special agent, as a second witness. Mr Hart, who had met with Mr Bannon’s former attorney about the subpoena last year, presented social media posts in which Mr Bannon appeared to be celebrating his decision to ignore the subpoena.
The testimony of Mr. Hart seemed to contradict the argument that Mr. Bannon then, and even in recent months, Mr. Bannon that he and the committee were still negotiating a deadline for his collaboration.
Bannon’s trial began this week after a series of rulings severely limited his defense.
His lawyers had put forward a number of reasons why Mr. Bannon had refused to testify before Congress, but Judge Nichols had systematically rejected them.
Judge Nichols, in particular, rejected the idea that Mr. Bannon could claim the executive privilege granted by Mr. Trump, protecting him from the subpoena. He also rejected the defense’s request to postpone the trial until October over concerns that high-profile coverage of the House committee’s public hearings this summer could harm jurors.
On Thursday, the defense will have the chance to present its side. It is unclear whether Mr. Bannon or other witnesses will testify, and the case could be concluded as early as this week.
