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Jan. 6 committee will move to hold former Trump aide Bannon in criminal contempt for not complying with subpoena

October 14, 2021 at 7:57 p.m. EDT
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack said on Oct. 15 it will move forward to hold Stephen K. Bannon in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena. (Video: Reuters)

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol announced on Thursday that it will move to hold Stephen K. Bannon in criminal contempt for not complying with its subpoena as it seeks to force former Trump administration officials to cooperate with its inquiry.

Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said the panel will meet Tuesday when the House returns to Washington to vote to adopt a contempt report.

“The Select Committee will use every tool at its disposal to get the information it seeks, and witnesses who try to stonewall the Select Committee will not succeed,” Thompson said in a statement.

The decision to pursue a criminal complaint signals the committee’s aggressive approach as it tries to avoid the standoffs that bedeviled congressional Democrats during the Trump administration. At the time, drawn-out legal battles frustrated attempts to scrutinize the Trump White House and federal agencies.

What can happen to the Trump advisers who are ignoring the Jan. 6 subpoenas?

Members of the select committee have argued that the situation is different now with Donald Trump out of office, saying they believe the Biden Justice Department will assist their efforts to investigate the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812 by taking up criminal complaints to help enforce its subpoenas.

“We expect the Justice Department to adhere to the principle that no one is above the law,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the committee, said earlier this week.

A successful prosecution for contempt, which is classified as a misdemeanor, could lead to Bannon facing a fine of up to $100,000 and a one-year sentence in federal prison.

“It is very helpful with compliance to seek a criminal referral because it will demonstrate that there are penalties for those who don’t cooperate,” said Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House ethics counsel who served as an adviser to the first Trump impeachment. He said he and other lawyers believe the referral may speed up the investigation, which is already moving ahead with alacrity.

But some legal experts expressed skepticism that the committee’s use of criminal contempt charges will help it secure more cooperation from reluctant witnesses or speed up its investigation, noting a prosecution could take years. They also said Bannon could be acquitted.

“It’s not going to shorten the process. If anything, it’s going to go a long game,” said Stanley Brand, a former House general counsel. “There’s a lot of ways that he goes to trial and he forces the committee or the Department of Justice to prove each and every element of a congressional contempt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Others noted the panel is facing the potential political deadline of the 2022 midterm elections, after which Democrats could lose control of the House.

“The objective in this case — for Bannon and for anybody similarly situated — is to run out the clock until the election in 2022 on the hope, at least, that Republicans will gain control of the House, at which point this investigation will be kicked into the tall grass,” said Frank O. Bowman III, a University of Missouri law professor.

The panel has opted to give other former Trump officials more time to comply with its subpoenas.

Mark Meadows and Kash Patel were both scheduled to appear before the committee by the end of this week for closed-door interviews and are now expected to be provided an extension or continuance, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced.

Meadows served as Trump’s chief of staff at the end of his administration, and Patel served as chief of staff to acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller on Jan. 6.

Because the delivery of former Trump deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino’s subpoena was delayed, the committee has postponed his scheduled deposition this week, according to a select committee aide.

Meadows, Patel and Scavino did not respond to requests for comment.

The committee — seven Democrats and two Republicans, all appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — was created earlier this year after Republicans in the Senate blocked the creation of an independent commission modeled on the one that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Trump has urged his allies and former aides not to cooperate with the panel. He continues to spread false claims about election fraud that served as the rallying cry for his supporters when they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent bid to prevent lawmakers from certifying electoral college results and declaring Joe Biden the next president.

Democrats and the panel’s two Republicans have portrayed the attack on the Capitol as an attack on democracy and said that a failure to fully investigate the event could clear the way for future attempts to overturn legitimate election results, including through violence.

“We’re moving ahead quickly to get answers for the American people about what happened on January 6th and help secure the future of American democracy,” Thompson said in his statement Thursday.

Thompson said that several individuals who faced an Oct. 13. deadline to produce materials have complied with the committee’s subpoenas. These individuals were subpoenaed at the end of September and were associated with or involved in the planning of pro-Trump rallies that preceded the attack on the Capitol.

The committee has not specified which organizers have engaged with the committee, but they are likely to face questions about the “Stop the Steal” rally where Trump spoke before attendees marched down to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Bannon, Meadows, Patel and Scavino are considered key witnesses by panel members as they investigate the Trump administration’s efforts to overturn election results and interfere with the transfer of power. The decision to give Meadows and Patel more time to comply with subpoenas sent out last month indicates at least a minimal level of cooperation between the committee and two of Trump’s former advisers. Whether Scavino will cooperate remains an open question, but he was perhaps Trump’s most loyal aide and remains close to the former president.

The committee announced a subpoena on Wednesday for another person it views as a key witness — former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who sought to deploy department resources to support Trump’s false claims of massive voting fraud in the 2020 election.

Jan. 6 committee preparing to aggressively enforce subpoenas, targets former Trump DOJ official

Bannon’s lawyer, Robert Costello, wrote to Thompson on Wednesday that his client would not be providing information requested by the committee, citing ongoing objections — and instructions — from Trump’s lawyer. Bannon and Costello did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Bannon was not part of the administration on Jan. 6. He left his job as a top White House adviser to Trump in 2017. Several legal experts have questioned whether executive privilege could shield Bannon from responding to requests for information about what happened during a period when he was not a White House employee.

The committee has said it believes Bannon has “information relevant to understanding important activities that led to and informed the events at the Capitol” on Jan. 6.

After the committee, as expected, approves a contempt charge next week, the House must then vote on the matter. Once passed, the contempt referral would then be sent to the Justice Department. It would then be up to the Biden administration — namely, Attorney General Merrick Garland — to decide whether to criminally prosecute an individual for failing to comply with the congressional subpoena.

The White House has already taken steps to help the committee by deciding not to stand in the way of requests for information it is seeking from the National Archives on Trump and his aides.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if the president agrees that people who defy congressional subpoenas related to the insurrection should face federal prosecution. Psaki said the situation is in the purview of the Justice Department. “They handle, exclusively, those decisions,” Psaki said.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Bowman, the Missouri professor, said the department will be under pressure to aid the committee.

“We have a direct physical assault on Congress itself, we have property damage, we have deaths, we have injuries. We have, certainly, at least an effort to undermine the peaceful transfer of power,” he said. “It doesn’t get any more constitutionally central or important than that.”