Trial Date Set for Steve Bannon's Contempt Charges
Steve Bannon, longtime media provocateur and former adviser to then-President Donald Trump, has become the first victim of the legal arm of the select committee on January 6th, but he won’t be facing the music for quite some time.
Bannon refused to comply with a subpoena from the committee, citing his belief that he could incriminate himself if certain aspects of the claim of executive privilege were not first adjudicated. This would have been accidental incrimination, mind you, as Bannon may have inadvertently testified some piece of information that the US government, Trump administration or not, wouldn’t want out there for the world to see.
But, with the Democrats who are running the committee worried that their bluff was going to get called, (which is something Democrats seem to worry about all of the time), they went ahead and sent the DOJ after Bannon.
A federal judge on Tuesday set a tentative July 18 start date for the trial of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on charges of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a probe of the Capitol riot.
The trial is scheduled to last two weeks, Judge Carl Nichols ruled after hearing from federal prosecutors and lawyers for Bannon during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington.
The ruling split the difference between the requests from prosecutors, who wanted a speedy trial to start in mid-April at the latest, and Bannon’s lawyers, who requested 10 months of time to prepare.
Advertisement - story continues belowThe House voted to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress in late October for refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents and testimony that was issued by the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
The closer the trial was to the 2022 midterm elections, the more that the media circus surrounding the already-bombastic Bannon would have an affect.
