A federal court jury found Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser, guilty of contempt of court. donald trumpfor having refused to collaborate with the congressional committee investigating the assault on the Capitol.
Bannon, 68, a figure of right-wing populism in the United States and director of Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, will hear the sentence in October.
This discreet but very influential adviser remained in contact with the former Republican president until the days before the assault on January 6, 2021. The parliamentary committee had asked him to give a statement and present documents, which he refused.
The jury in a federal court of Washington deliberated for less than three hours and concluded that Bannon is guilty of the two charges against him.
He faces between a month and a year in prison for each charge.
Even after being kicked out of the White House in August 2017, Steve Bannon remained in contact with Trump and spoke with him the day before the attack on the headquarters of Congress.
To find out what they talked about those days, the commission summoned him to testify and present documents. However, he refused, citing the right of presidents to keep some of their conversations secret.
This rejection caused him to be accused of “obstructing” the work of Congress.
“We may have lost a battle, but we will not lose the war,” Bannon told reporters after the verdict was delivered. “I support Trump and the Constitution“.
The president of the investigation committee of the House of Representatives on the assault on the Capitol, Bennie Thompson, and his vice president, Republican Liz Cheney, called it a “victory for the rule of law.”
“Just as all those responsible for the events of January 6 must be held accountable, anyone who obstructs our investigation into these events must bear the consequences,” they add in a statement.
silent defense
At the opening of the debates on Tuesday, prosecutor Amanda Vaughn accused Steve Bannon of believing himself “above the law.”
Bannon “ignored the compliance orders, even after Congress rejected his pretexts” and was told he would be prosecuted if he did not attend the subpoena, Vaughn added.
According to her, the commission had reason to think that he, like other collaborators of the president, could have information about the links between Donald Trump and his supporters who broke into the Capitol while congressmen certified the presidential victory of Democrat Joe Biden.
The defense did not present witnesses at the trial, which began Monday with jury selection, and Steve Bannon did not speak in his defense.
His lawyer, Evan Corcoran, denounced a political persecution, assuring that “no one ignored the call to appear” and that the date had even been negotiated.
As the trial approached, Bannon agreed to cooperate with the congressmen. But the prosecution denounced “a last minute attempt to avoid accountability” and the judge in charge of the case decided to keep the trial.
Steve Bannon is closely tied to far-right ideology and promoted it when Trump entered the White House in 2017.
Before, he directed the controversial Breitbart news site, a platform of the “alternative right”, a movement associated with conspiracy theses and made up of militants convinced of the superiority of the white race.
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