Would You Like To See Steve Bannon Go To Prison?

On his podcast Monday, Bannon called former Attorney General William Barr an "establishment scumbag" and "a liar" and threaten legal action against him for working to directly destroy the fascist movement. "Bill Barr," Bannon growled into his mic, "you’ll go down in infamy. We’re going to deconstruct this, we’re going to rub your nose in it and then we’re going to come after you legally. We’re not just going to sit here anymore." Two years ago Bannon was arrested for the We Build The Wall scam but Trump, knowing full well all the dirt Bannon has on him, pardoned him before the trial-- and a few hours before he left teh White House for the last time. Last October he was held in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena and in November a federal grand jury indicted him. His trial is set for July 18, although he's trying to postpone that or to move it to a red state.

He's been appealing ever since, hoping to get one of teh Trump judges to rule in his favor. He lost one case in April and he lost another one today. He got his Trump judge, Carl Nichols of the DC District Court. Every Republican voted to confirm Nichols in 2019 and every Democrat voted against him except three Trump-friendly right-wingers: Doug Jones (AL), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Joe Manchin (WV).

But even Nicols rejected Bannon’s motion to dismiss the case, including his ideological argument that the House select committee’s subpoenas were illegal. Like every Trump official who didn't want to testify and went to the courts whining about the select committee not being legitimate, Bannon's arguments fell flat.

Bannon was in on the planning of the coup and insurrection and the day before the attack he told the podcast audience that "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow... [A]ll I can say is: Strap in. You have made this happen, and tomorrow it’s game day." The Select Committee would like to find out how he knew. When he refused to show up, the House approved a resolution, 229-202, holding him in contempt and referring his case to the Department of Justice for prosecution. The nine Republicans who joined the Democrats to uphold the law were the two on the select committee, Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL) plus 7 world fashioned mainstream conservative law and order types: Fred Upton (MI), John Katko (NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), Peter Meijer (MI), Anthony Gonzalez (OH) and Nancy Mace (SC). Yesterday Mace, who had been targeted for extinction by Señor Trumpanzee, won her primary battle against Trump's far right endorsee, Katie Arrington 53.1% to 45.3%.

This morning, Politico's Kyle Cheney reported that "In an oral ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols rebuffed a series of arguments Bannon had lodged, including that Trump had asserted executive privilege to block his former aide’s testimony. Nichols contended that there’s insufficient evidence that Trump truly did assert privilege or seek to block Bannon from testifying to the panel the House created to investigate the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and related events... He is slated to go on trial in July, though his attorney, David Schoen, indicated he might seek to postpone the trial date given the publicity surrounding the Jan. 6 select committee’s public hearings. In another win for the select committee, Nichols declined to rule that the structure or make-up of the committee undercut the validity subpoena to Bannon, sweeping aside arguments that the panel was operating improperly because the panel lacks any appointees of House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy."

Bannon is usually wrong as a political strategist. This afternoon, yakking it up with reporters, he solved all his problems: "This is going to be a massive blowout like 1932. You’re witnessing, right now, a political realignment like 1932. And we will govern for 100 years after we win 100 seats... I believe that we will destroy the Democratic Party as a national political institution. A populist uprising of Hispanics, African-Americans and working-class people is before us."