Steve Bannon’s Jan. 6 committee delay on Trump’s behalf can’t succeed

It is not surprising that the first round of subpoenas sent out by the committee on January 6th has been ignored. Not when former President Donald Trump all but directed the four former officials in question to refuse.

Trump’s favorite tactic, given the potential legal ramifications, especially Congress, is to postpone the trial in court and run the clock until the danger is over. It is safe to assume that he intends to do so this time too. The big difference between now and then is that Trump is no longer president. This time the power and the law are right against him – a fact that he and his cronies must be reminded of without hesitation or delay.

This time around, power and law are directly against Trump – a fact that he and his cronies must be reminded of without hesitation or hesitation.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that a former president’s attorney had sent a letter to the potential witnesses claiming he wanted to exercise executive privilege over any communications under the subpoenas. Two of the recipients – former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Pentagon official Kash Patel – are so far “dealing” with the committee, the committee’s leadership said in a statement on Friday. (Dan Scavino, who covered Trump’s social media strategy at the White House, had managed to evade his subpoena by Friday afternoon.)

But the right-wing extremist podcast host Steve Bannon is orienting himself towards Trump. “We will follow the instructions of the courts if and when they decide on these claims of managerial and legal privileges,” wrote attorney Robert Costello in a letter to the committee. “Since these privileges belong to President Trump and not Mr. Bannon, Mr. Bannon will not be legally able to honor your subpoena until these issues are resolved.”

NEW – Bannon dismissed the congressional subpoena, the attorney citing the Trump team requesting executive privilege even though Bannon was not working for the executive when these events took place. Says they’ll wait for the problem to be resolved before continuing. pic.twitter.com/8kT9mGKKXB

– Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 8, 2021

A couple of factors undermine this claim. First of all, Bannon was not a member of the executive branch during the period in question. At most, Trump’s letter would cover all communications Bannon had with the White House or other members of the executive branch. What that doesn’t cover is the entirety of the subpoena request. Bannon was a major player in promoting the January 6 rally that preceded the Capitol attack, and he still tells his audience that Trump could be “reinstated”. It is ridiculous to claim a blanket inability to comply with the request of Congress.

In addition, the Biden administration is not defending the executive privilege Trump claimed in some of the committee’s broadest inquiries on Jan. 6. NBC News was the first to report on Friday that the White House had given the national archives the all-clear to release documents and notices related to the work of the committee. President Joe Biden “has determined that the assertion of executive privileges is not in the best interests of the United States and therefore is not warranted in relation to any of the documents,” White House Legal Advisor Dana Remus wrote in her letter to the Archives Administrators .

After all, executive privilege is not a free pass to get out of jail, especially not for a former president. While federal laws and Supreme Court rulings give ex-presidents the right to review documents for potentially privileged material, nothing is said about what happens if the incumbent president orders the delivery of those materials. And previous case law requires that the requested documents are “demonstrably critical for the responsible performance of the committee’s duties”, which is fairly easy to argue for the January 6th committee.

But here’s the thing: Trump probably doesn’t know about it, and he definitely doesn’t care. The actual level of executive privilege is less important than the fact that, as his lawyer said, he is “willing to defend these basic privileges in court”. All that matters to him is that enough people can pretend there is a serious, altruistic reason why Congress can’t get the documents it wants, that a legal challenge appears at least halfway credible.

Every day, every week, every month that Congress is left in the dark is another step in avoiding Trump’s consequences for his actions – again.

That is why he was targeting around 40 files that the National Archives had made available to him for review, his lawyer claimed on Friday afternoon. Trump also preemptively asserted executive privilege over other documents in the Congress request, for which he had no time. Biden will almost certainly reiterate his order to ignore Trump – but any lawsuit the former president files in defense of that claim will invariably consume time, even if the courts rule against him.

And therein lies the problem. Committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., Has said he hopes to be ready by early next year, which won’t be long. And if the GOP recaptures the House of Representatives in 2023, all ongoing investigations are sure to be closed. Every day, every week, every month that Congress is left in the dark is another step in avoiding Trump’s consequences for his actions – again.

Thompson and committee vice-chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Said in their statement Friday that “we will not allow any witness to oppose a legal subpoena or try to pass the time, and we are moving quickly consider encouraging criminal contempt ”. Congressional referral. “This is great news – but it also takes time for a US attorney to prosecute a disregard case in federal courts.

The House should move quickly with its disdain for Bannon should he remain defiant. But it should also consider acting with a seldom-used power: inherent disdain. While in modern times Congress relied on the Justice Department to enforce a law on criminal contempt, the Supreme Court previously affirmed the “independent and unilateral authority of the legislature to arrest and detain individuals to enforce subpoenas”. In this scenario, the House Sergeant-at-Arms could be ordered to arrest Bannon and take him to the Capitol until he agrees to provide the requested testimony.

Would that be an enormous escalation and would it lead the Congress into uncharted waters? Yes – apart from the fact that we are already in uncharted waters here. There has never been a situation in which a then-incumbent president completely reversed an election he had lost. We have never had a time when that person, thanks to an impeachment acquittal, was able to regain power in the next election. And we have never had such a clear crisis for the future of democracy as now, when the former president is still encouraging his supporters to remove any obstacles that previously stood in his way.

All of this means that Trump must not slow down this investigation. Its supporters must not undermine the will of the Congress, which was elected as a representative of the people. Both Congress and the Justice Department must do everything in their power to extract the information they need to protect our next election.

Hayes Brown is the writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps shape the day’s news for readers. He previously worked at BuzzFeed News and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in international relations.