The close collaborator of the former president Donald J Trump and guru of his launch into politics, Steve Bannon, was found guilty of contempt of Congress, in the investigations into the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 of last year, for refusing to appear before the congressional commission investigating the failed coup. Condition.
Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former top adviser and the first chief of his 2016 presidential campaign, was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress, by a jury that needed just under three hours to reach that conclusion.
The guilty verdict came after weeks of heated speeches by Bannon outside federal court in Washington, a lengthy jury selection process and a speedy trial that a judge had promised would prevent from becoming “a political circus.”
It also came a day after video of Bannon briefly surfaced at a House committee public hearing that he had snubbed, as investigators played a clip of him saying Trump had planned to declare victory in the 2020 election no matter what. was the real result.
Although Bannon was convicted of what amounts to a low-level procedural felony, his conviction represents a serious blow against Trump and could determine whether the Justice Department decides to take the former president to court after House hearings.
Another former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, has also been charged with contempt after defying a committee subpoena and is scheduled to go on trial in November.
Bannon, who left the White House in 2017, was indicted last November. Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor, and each count is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and a maximum of 12 months in prison.
At the time, the filing of charges against him was widely seen as a litmus test to determine whether the Justice Department would take an aggressive stance against any of Trump’s top allies, as the House seeks to develop a fuller picture of the actions of the former president and his inner circle before and during the attack on Capitol Hill.
Despite the legal wrangling that preceded the trial, Bannon’s guilt or innocence ultimately became a simple question: whether he had defied the House committee by flouting his citation. “This case is not complicated, but it is important,” US Attorney Molly Gaston said in a closing statement Friday.
Gaston told the jury that the House committee had wanted to question Bannon about his presence at the Willard Hotel before the Capitol attack and about his statement the day before the attack that “all hell would break loose.”
“The defendant chose his loyalty to Donald Trump over compliance with the law,” the prosecutor said.
