Jury selection began today in the trial of former Trump Advisor Steve
Bannon, who faces criminal contempt of Congress charges after refusing
to comply with the January 6th Select Committee, John Yang has more
on the trial and the role it plays in the broader investigation.
I'm not banning is the first member of Trump's inner circle to go
on trial for defying a committee subpoena.
Jury selection started slowly today, with Bannon's attorney, asking
potential jurors how much of the hearings they watched and whether
they have opinions about the committee and its work.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department for The Washington Post.
Devlin. People may be confused here because the headline last week
was that Bannon said he was willing to testify before the committee.
And yet, this this trial this contempt trial, uh, is underway, so
help people understand what's going on here.
So a lot of what you saw Bannon doing last week and the week before,
I think you have to really see in context of him trying to delay
his trial.
And essentially, he did make that offer to testify to the committee.
But it was such a last minute thing and you know he was. He was charged
like this. The events that led to this trial all came last year.
And so what? Prosecutors and frankly the judge as well have said
to Bannon's last minute offers is, you know it's really too late
for that.
You refuse to cooperate with the committee? Uh, allegedly, and now
there's going to be a trial over over. Exactly how that happened.
Is this likely or it is a possible outcome of this that he will cooperate
with the committee and comply with the subpoena.
You know, One of the real ironies of charging someone with contempt
of Congress is it's really just a punishment. If anything, it makes
it less likely that he will end up testifying to the committee because
there is now a potential conviction or a potential appeal of these
legal issues, all of which would make it harder for him to testify
Not easier.
This is really just the stick of punishment now for someone that
they decided was not going to deal with them.
He's been arguing that he doesn't have to testify or appear or comply
because he's covered by executive privilege. Is that something the
judge has said he can argue in his defense.
The judge has left open the idea that he may be able to argue to
the to the jury that he was still willing to cooperate. Or he had
some interest. Uh, newfound willingness to cooperate, but But this
executive privilege argument, I think has been ah.
Misunderstood or mischaracterized because the judge also said, We
don't even know that the president invoked executive privilege. In
this case. We are essentially taking that from the defendant's lawyers
saying that it was invoked and and one of the real core. Simple issues
in this trial is
Did Steve Bannon or did he not get a subpoena from the committee
with a certain date by which he was supposed to testify and give
documents?
And did he give them any of those things? Or did he at least explain
why he wasn't going to give them those things or have some sort of
back and forth about it? And the prosecution argument is that he
didn't He basically said and did nothing of value and that is what
led to the charge. So this is a very narrow set of facts that they're
going to be being trying trying in this case.
Extremely narrow, so narrow, in fact, that you know, jury selection
may take one or two days here, it's possible. This is one of the
rare cases where the trial itself could be shorter than the jury
selection. Um, that is how narrow the law and the facts are at issue
here. But again, you can't know for sure. Until you see what some
of the defense decisions are and what kind of case they try to present.
Aside from this issue of whether of contempt of Congress for allegedly
not complying or ignoring this subpoena from the January 6th committee.
Is it possible that Steve Bannon could be part of a broader
Justice Department investigation into January 6th.
So what we've seen is that the January 6th investigation is incredibly
broad and encompasses hundreds of people and a lot of different conduct
and certainly is one of the public mouthpieces and boosters of January
6th. Steve Bannon is in the mix in a lot of that activity, so separate
and apart from this case, which is just about the narrow question
of contempt.
I do think it's reasonable to think that Steve Bannon is sort of
in the Justice Department's field of vision as they look at all the
events leading up to January. 6th and Devlin remind us what's the
possible penalty for these contempt charges that he's facing in trial?
So he faces two charges. Each charge carries of minimum jail term
of a month or a maximum of a year. To be honest, the case history,
though no one's gone to jail for this as long as anyone has been
alive, So this is in some ways, uh, making an example of Steve Bannon.
A lot of a lot of the Steve Bannon trial is not so much about Steve
Bannon. It's about sending a message to all the other people who
have been subpoenaed by the committee.
Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post. Thank you very much. Thank