Jan. 6 committee advances report to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt

The committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol released its contempt report Monday on former President Trump ally Steve Bannon, a document that outlines the efforts the committee took to get Bannon to comply with its subpoena — and the failure by him to do so.

The panel is voting now to adopt the report. The criminal contempt report lays out all the correspondence between the committee and Bannon, revealing new details about what happened the day of his scheduled deposition and making his full subpoena publicly available for the first time.

Throughout the report, the committee makes the case for why Bannon’s claim of executive privilege does not hold up and lays out the legal argument for why he must comply with the subpoena.

Read the full report here.

The Jan. 6 committee is voting to adopt a report recommending that the House hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena.

The contempt report, which was released Monday night, outlines the efforts the committee made to get a witness to comply with the subpoena, and the failure by the witness to do so.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told CNN on Tuesday that he expects the full House to vote on criminal contempt charges for Bannon before the end of the week, and a source familiar with the floor schedule told CNN the plan is for the the chamber to vote on the referral on Thursday.

After the full House vote, it would then get referred to the Justice Department.

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, said the panel had no choice but to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for refusing a congressional subpoena.

Cheney highlighted how on Jan. 5, Bannon “publicly professed knowledge that, ‘All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.’”

Cheney noted that Bannon’s defiance and lack of cooperation is why the committee is moving forward to hold him in criminal contempt.

“The American people are entitled to Mr. Bannon’s first-hand testimony about all these relevant facts. But as the chairman noted, Mr. Bannon is refusing to provide it. Reserving our Constitution and the rule of law is a central purpose of this investigation. The plain fact here is that Mr. Bannon has no legal right to ignore the committee’s lawful subpoena,” she said.

Cheney said Bannon’s defense of executive privilege does not apply.

Cheney then went on to assert, “Mr. Bannon’s, and Mr. Trump’s privileged arguments do, however, appear to reveal one thing. They suggest that President Trump was personally involved in the planning and execution of Jan. 6 and this committee will get to the bottom of that.”

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson speaks at Tuesday night's vote.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, said the panel’s plan to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt brings him “no joy,” but the committee would not take no for answer.

“Let me start by saying that it gives me no joy that I’ve been forced to call this meeting,” he said as the committee prepared to vote. “The expectation of this committee is that all witnesses will cooperate with our investigation.”

“Our goal is simple. We want Mr. Bannon to answer our questions. We want him to turn over whatever records he possess that are relevant to the select committee’s investigation. The issue in front of us today is our ability to do our job,” he continued.

Thompson said that Bannon “stands alone in his complete defiance” of the House subpoenas, adding “that’s not acceptable. No one in this country, no matter how wealthy or how powerful, is above the law.”

The chair warned that if other witnesses followed in Bannon’s footsteps of noncompliance, they would face a similar criminal contempt reality as Bannon. 

“I want other witnesses to understand something very plainly: if you’re thinking of following the path Mr. Bannon has gone down, you’re on notice that this is what you’ll face” Thompson said. 

Thompson added that the committee, “won’t be deterred. We won’t be distracted. And we won’t be delayed.”

The panel is meeting tonight to adopt a contempt report on Bannon, which outlines the efforts it took to get him to comply with its subpoena and his failure to do so.

The report will then be referred to the House for a vote. After the full House vote expected Thursday, it would then go to the Justice Department.

CNN’s Annie Grayer contributed reporting to this post.

The Jan. 6 committee is meeting now to vote on a report recommending that the House hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena.

The contempt report, which was released Monday night, outlines the efforts the committee made to get the witness to comply with the subpoena, and the failure by the witness to do so.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told CNN on Tuesday that he expects the full House to vote on criminal contempt charges for Bannon before the end of the week, and a source familiar with the floor schedule told CNN the plan is for the the chamber to vote on the referral on Thursday. After the full House vote, it would then get referred to the Justice Department.

The criminal contempt report is expected to move to the floor without any opposition from the committee members and marks a critical milestone in the investigation as the panel hopes even the remote threat of jail time inspires more Trump-aligned witnesses to cooperate.

Any individual who is found liable for contempt of Congress would be guilty of a crime that may result in a fine and between one and 12 months imprisonment. But this process is rarely invoked and rarely leads to jail time — though the House’s pursuit of criminal charges may be more about making an example out of Bannon and sending a message to other potential witnesses.

You can read the committee’s full criminal contempt report on Bannon here.

Steve Bannon speaks to the media in November 2019.

Steve Bannon, who was President Trump’s former White House chief strategist, spoke with Trump in December, urging him to focus on Jan. 6 — the date of the official certification on the Electoral College vote by Congress, according to authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book “Peril.”

“We’re going to bury Biden on January 6th,” Bannon is quoted as saying.

Woodward and Costa also reported that Trump called Bannon following his contentious Jan. 6 meeting with then-Vice President Mike Pence, in which the vice president said he does not have the authority to block certification of Joe Biden’s win.

In its letter to Bannon, the committee cites communications he had with Trump on December 30, 2020, “and potentially other occasions” in which Bannon reportedly urged the former President “to plan for and focus his efforts on January 6.” The committee also references Bannon’s incendiary comments made on his podcast on Jan. 5, in which he said “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

The committee announced last week that it was moving forward to hold Bannon in criminal contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena.

“Mr. Bannon has declined to cooperate with the Select Committee and is instead hiding behind the former President’s insufficient, blanket, and vague statements regarding privileges he has purported to invoke,” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee, said in a statement on Thursday.

Bannon was scheduled for a deposition in front of the committee last Thursday, but his lawyer wrote in a letter to the panel the day before that his client will not provide testimony or documents until the committee reaches an agreement with former President Trump over executive privilege or a court weighs in on the matter.

The next step for the committee to move forward with criminal contempt for Bannon is to hold a business meeting, which Thompson said would be today. In that meeting, the committee will adopt a contempt report, which outlines the efforts it made to get the witness to comply with the subpoena and the failure by the witness to do so.

Any individual who is found liable for contempt of Congress is then guilty of a crime that may result in a fine and between one and 12 months’ imprisonment.

Holding Bannon in criminal contempt through a prosecution, however, could take years, and historic criminal contempt cases have been derailed by appeals and acquittals.

Read more about Bannon’s actions on Jan. 6 here.

US Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, speaks with the media after a committee hearing in July.

There are nine lawmakers on the Jan. 6 Select Committee. Seven of them are Democrats and two are Republicans.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is the chair of the committee.

Rep. Liz Cheney is the vice chair. She and Rep. Adam Kinzinger are the only two Republicans on the committee. They have defied their party by joining the panel controlled by Democrats, and Cheney even sacrificed her own position in leadership in order to remain vocal and outspoken about the need to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

Other members are Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin, Elaine Luria, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy and Zoe Lofgren.

As severe as a criminal contempt referral sounds, the House’s choice to use the Justice Department may be more of a warning shot than a solution. Holding Steve Bannon in criminal contempt through a prosecution could take years, and historic criminal contempt cases have been derailed by appeals and acquittals.

Congress almost never forces a recalcitrant witness into testifying through prosecution, according to several longtime Washington attorneys familiar with congressional proceedings.

An Environmental Protection Agency official in the Reagan administration was the last person indicted for criminal contempt of Congress. The DC US Attorney’s Office of the Justice Department took eight days from receiving the House’s contempt referral for Rita Lavelle in 1983 to having a grand jury indict her. Lavelle fought the charges to trial, and a jury found her not guilty.

At least one other criminal contempt proceeding predating Lavelle, during the anti-communist McCarthy-era investigations of the 1950s, was overturned by the Supreme Court on appeal. In more recent administrations, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute contempt referrals – though in those situations, Congress has made contempt referrals on members of the sitting president’s administration.

“I’m watching people on TV bloviate about this. They’re going to send [Bannon] to criminal contempt. OK. Fine. That just starts the case,” Brand, who was the House general counsel during Lavelle’s contempt proceedings, told CNN. “There’s a trial. It’s not automatic they’re going to get convicted.”

The criminal contempt approach also is structured to be more of a punishment than an attempt to compel a witness to speak.

“It’s not like civil contempt, where you hold the keys to your jail cell and get released” if a witness agrees to testify, Brand said.

Instead, the House essentially loses control of the case as the Justice Department takes over to prosecute.

“They don’t have any time,” Brand added. “They’ve got to get this done before next year, before there’s an election.”

Members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol have made clear they’re willing to move forward with criminal contempt referrals against any witness that refuses to comply with its subpoenas.

But what does that mean?

Criminal contempt is one of the three options the congressional panel can pursue to enforce its subpoenas, along with civil and inherent contempt.

Steve Bannon could be the first to test the panel’s willingness to purse such a referral. The committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday and vote on whether the Trump ally should be referred to the Justice Department for criminal contempt charges after refusing to comply with a subpoena deadline last week.

The panel had sent him a letter on Friday rejecting his argument for failing to comply while dismissing his claim of executive privilege, particularly as it relates to his communications with individuals other than former President Trump, according to a copy obtained by CNN.

Here are some more key things to know about criminal contempt:

To pursue criminal contempt charges, Congress would vote on criminal contempt, then make a referral to the executive branch — headed by the President — to try to get the person criminally prosecuted.

A jail sentence of a month or more is possible if a witness won’t comply, under the law.

It’s unclear how quickly this route would move, and how the Biden Justice Department would respond to a contempt referral from the Democrats in the House. The process would leave it up to Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide on involving the Justice Department in pursuing charges, putting the department in the middle of what many Republicans view as a partisan effort.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Perry, Georgia, in September.

Former President Trump filed a lawsuit Monday in DC District Court against the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and the National Archives in an effort to keep records from his presidency secret by claiming executive privilege.

The lawsuit from Trump is an attempt to block the work of the House committee as it investigates his actions before and during the siege of the Capitol. The court action also marks his latest effort in a long and thorny fight against subpoenas from the Democratic-controlled US House.

The Biden administration has declined to assert executive privilege over a first tranche of Trump-era records, and Trump is currently opposed to the release of about 40 documents.

It also claims that President Biden’s refusal to protect some of the documents was “a political ploy to accommodate his partisan allies.” A spokesperson for Trump leaned into this argument in a statement announcing the lawsuit that accused Democrats of trying to change the political narrative with their Jan. 6 probe.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, responded in a joint statement Monday night that “the former President’s clear objective is to stop the Select Committee from getting to the facts about January 6th and his lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe. Precedent and law are on our side.”

The pair vowed to “fight the former President’s attempt to obstruct our investigation while we continue to push ahead successfully with our probe on a number of other fronts.”

Read the full story here.