Steve Bannon will not testify in criminal contempt trial, attorney says
Washington — Former top Trump aide Steve Bannon will not testify in his own defense during his criminal contempt of Congress trial, his attorney David Schoen said in court on Thursday.
Schoen told Judge Carl Nichols that the defense team will not be presenting any case to the jury. He said that Bannon would not testify because of Nichols' various pretrial orders, among them, one that would prevent Bannon from saying he was just following advice of counsel and that he believed executive privilege applied to his decision not to testify before the committee. Bannon affirmed this in court Thursday.
"He would be barred from telling the true facts," Schoen said.
Nichols said he was following D.C. Circuit Court precedent and not his own personal opinions in denying Bannon's requested defenses, many of which were banned due to relevance and scope.
Nichols said he was following D.C. Circuit Court precedent and not his own personal opinions in denying Bannon's requested defenses, many of which were banned due to relevance and scope.
Bannon, who served as former President Donald Trump's chief White House strategist and was the CEO of his first presidential campaign, is on trial for two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after allegedly refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents and testimony issued by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
His decision not to testify comes after nearly two days of arguments in which prosecutors told the jury of Washington, D.C., residents that Bannon thought he was "above the law" and "thumbed his nose" at congressional demands.
On Wednesday, the chief counsel for the Jan. 6 committee told jurors that it's "very unusual" for witnesses who receive a congressional subpoena to outright fail to comply, as Bannon did, and the committee viewed its referral of Bannon to the Justice Department for criminal contempt of Congress as a "very serious step."
Bannon maintained at the time of his refusal that he could not testify because of executive privilege concerns raised by the former president, but Amerling said the committee never received notice from Trump about this, but the committee would not have recognized such a claim anyway.
Last week, Bannon told the Jan. 6 committee in an about-face that he's willing to testify — publicly — after his attorney, Robert Costello, said Trump had reversed course on his executive privilege claims.
Prosecutors tried to prevent Bannon's defense team from introducing his change of heart into evidence for the jury to consider, but in court on Wednesday, Bannon's lawyers convinced Nichols to allow them to question Amerling about it.
The defense has argued Bannon thought conversations regarding the validity of Trump's executive privilege claim were ongoing and flexible, so he is not guilty of willfully defying the Congressional request.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty to both charges and if convicted, faces a maximum of one year in prison for each of the two counts.
