Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
What a big news weekend and so many different things happening, the Kyle Rittenhouse case
is the trial is into closing arguments and the jury will be deliberating.
We may have a verdict soon, we don't yet know.
We're going to talk about the case related to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
There's wacky stuff going on there.
So many different things.
But one of the big pieces of news news elements, I would even call it breaking at the very
end of last week and into the weekend is the indictment of former Trump adviser Stephen
K. Bannon, who has indeed been indicted on contempt for ignoring a subpoena from the
committee investigating the Jan. six Trump riots and of course, wanting to know Steve
Bannon's role in that.
Given all of the public statements that he has made very logical person that they would
want to talk to.
He ignored the subpoena.
He is indicted.
He is reportedly surrendering to authorities today and will be arraigned.
This is a big deal, and it is yet another Trump associate who has been indicted for
different reasons, of course.
New York Times reporting Bannon indicted on contempt charges over houses Capitol riot
inquiry.
Stephen K. Bannon, a former top aide to Donald Trump, had refused to comply with subpoenas
from the House Committee investigating the January 6th attack on Congress.
Stephen came in and a one time senior aide to Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury
Friday, two counts of contempt of Congress after his refusal to provide information to
the House Committee investigating what you and I and reasonable people around the world
know of as the Trump riots.
Bannon, who's 67 years old, declined last month to comply with subpoenas from the committee
seeking testimony and documents.
The House then voted to hold Mr. Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress.
The House referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney's Office for a decision on prosecution.
Trump has directed former aides and advisers to invoke immunity and refrain from turning
over documents.
A Justice Department spokesman said Bannon was expected to turn himself into authorities
Monday today and make his first appearance in Federal District Court in Washington later
today.
A lawyer for Bannon didn't respond to a request for comment.
This is going to be a really, really crazy period of time.
The Department of Justice putting out a statement official statement about what they did.
Stephen K. Bannon indicted for contempt of Congress.
Two charges filed for failing to honor House subpoena.
Bannon indicted on two counts, which I already told you one count involving his refusal to
appear for a deposition, another involving his refusal to produce documents.
Remember that you can subpoena an individual.
You can also subpoena documents.
He refused to show up, and he refused to provide the documents.
This I don't know that we really need to read much more of the statement.
We continue to see a growing number of Trump associates that have been indicted.
We now have Steve Bannon, Tom Barrack Elliott Broidy, Michael Cohen, who is down to his
last 10 days or so of his home confinement sentence.
Michael Flynn.
We're going to hear from him later in today's program.
Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Nader, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Allen Weisselberg.
Quite a list of quite a cadre.
I guess we would say of characters there.
And the question continues to be, is this going to reach Donald Trump ever?
I continue to believe it will not.
I continue to believe that the worst case scenario for Trump would be some kind of business
problem.
I don't believe this is ever going to reach Donald Trump, as you will hear in my comments
later on.
It is now being alleged by one of Trump's former press secretaries that he would hold
off the books meetings specifically to circumvent records laws to prevent there being records
about some of his meetings.
And arguably, that is a criminal issue, but I just continue to believe that it is not
going to get to him, and it is not for lack of deserving it.
It is because of the system and the political forces that we have at play in the United
States.
So what is ultimately going to happen with Steve Bannon?
We don't know yet.
The arraignment coming later today believed to be and this could be.
There are now allegations being made that there are subpoenas going out to Mark Meadows,
Trump's then chief of staff, potentially to people like Stephen Miller and others, if
they will also attempt to.
That's the one other thing I wanted to mention.
What Steve Bannon did is staying loyal to Trump.
As The New York Times reports, Trump directed Bannon and others not to comply with these
requests for their physical presence and their requests for documents to be turned over.
So Bannon is staying loyal to Trump now.
Trump no longer has pardon power.
Remember, Trump pardoned a number of different people.
Michael Flynn's one of them who we're going to talk about later.
Trump doesn't have pardon power anymore, so either there is a play that Trump will eventually
be president again and pardon them if they stay loyal.
That's a long shot.
It's not that it's impossible or implausible, but it's a long game.
You've got to wait years for to see if Trump is even going to run and then see if he's
going to be the nominee and then see if he's going to win and then see if you'll pardon
me.
So that's a very long play.
The other part of it would be they just believe ultimately they're going to get out unscathed,
and that remains to be seen.
But we'll see what happens at the arraignment today and what the next step is here.
Maybe there is a timing out aspect.
Maybe Bannon thinks, OK, I'm going to get indicted.
But in the time that my case will be pending, the committee will be done and I might get
a slap on the wrist.
Probably not a big deal.
But I will have avoided providing testimony or documents.
I don't know.
OK, I don't know what the legal strategy is, but we're going to see very, very soon