{"id":22822,"date":"2022-07-19T22:54:27","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T02:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=22822"},"modified":"2022-07-19T22:54:27","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T02:54:27","slug":"us-capitol-riot-steve-bannon-felt-above-the-law-by-defying-a-legal-summons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/07\/19\/us-capitol-riot-steve-bannon-felt-above-the-law-by-defying-a-legal-summons\/","title":{"rendered":"US Capitol riot: Steve Bannon felt above the law by defying a legal summons"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon felt “above the law” by defying a legal summons to testify about last year’s riot at the US Capitol, prosecutors said at the start of his trial.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Bannon, a key player in Donald Trump’s 2016 election win, faces two counts of contempt of Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He is accused of ignoring the “mandatory” summons to testify to a congressional panel investigating the riot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Bannon, 68, says he is innocent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Bannon served as campaign chief to Mr Trump in 2016 and became the White House’s chief strategist until he was ousted seven months later in the aftermath of a violent far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. But he has remained in touch with Mr Trump and his top allies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Following the 6 January 2021 riot, the former Trump adviser did not comply with a summons, known as a subpoena, to testify – as well as submit relevant documents – about his efforts to challenge the outcome of the November 2020 presidential election and organise the protests that culminated in the storming of Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During opening arguments at his trial, federal prosecutor Amanda Vaughn said the subpoena was not “a request” or “an invitation”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It was mandatory,” she said. “The defendant decided he was above the law.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A member of the defence team, Evan Corcoran, told the jury Mr Bannon was “innocent of the charges”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In his own opening statement, Mr Corcoran said negotiations over subpoenas are a “process” and that Mr Bannon – whom he described as a “political thinker” – had done nothing wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Outside court, Mr Bannon angrily accused the House of Representatives committee of staging a “show trial”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He argued that the congressional inquiry was being driven by the “total and complete illegitimacy” of Mr Biden, and he repeated false claims that Mr Trump won the election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prosecutors in the case believe that Mr Bannon may be able to shed light on the events that led to the 6 January riot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The committee has been particularly interested in Mr Bannon’s communications with Mr Trump ahead of the incident, as well as the “war room” meetings held at a nearby hotel with other key figures, allegedly, as part of a last-ditch attempt to thwart certification of President Joe Biden’s win.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After first being subpoenaed in September, Mr Bannon vowed to go “medieval” and become a “misdemeanour from hell” for the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He also argued that his contacts with Mr Trump were covered by executive privilege, a legal principle that holds communications between presidents and their advisers to be protected from disclosure in order to allow for candid advice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The judge, however, had previously ruled that Mr Bannon could not claim he didn’t comply with the subpoena as a result of executive privilege.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon felt “above the law” by defying a legal summons to testify about last year’s riot at the US Capitol, prosecutors said at the start of his trial. Mr Bannon, a […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[8656,285,4605,7547],"class_list":{"0":"post-22822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-contempt-of-congress","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-steve-bannon","13":"tag-us-capitol-riots","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22822"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22824,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22822\/revisions\/22824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}