He wanted a media spectacle and to have personalities like Nancy Pelosi testify, it failed. Tried for “obstructing the investigative prerogatives of Congress” on the Capitol assault, the ex-adviser to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, will only be entitled to an express trial which started with the selection of the jury, Monday, and should then last a week. If convicted, he faces between two months and two years in prison, but the proceedings could drag on with a potential appeal.
A discreet but very influential adviser, Steve Bannon had played a crucial role in the election of Donald Trump in 2016, by giving a resolutely populist turn to his campaign, before being pushed out the following year.
The two men, who remained close, had exchanged in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the headquarters of Congress, according to the House of Representatives committee responsible for shedding light on the role of the former president in this blow. To find out the nature of their discussions, the commission subpoenaed Steve Bannon to testify and produce documents. He refused, citing the right of presidents to keep certain conversations secret. His refusal led him to be charged in November with “obstructing the investigative powers of Congress”.
Proposal to testify before Congress
As his trial approached, this 68-year-old man had turned around and agreed to cooperate with parliamentarians. The prosecutors had denounced “a last minute reversal in order to avoid” a conviction and the judge in charge of the case wished to maintain the trial.
His lawyers also asked, in vain, for a postponement of the trial for fear that the jurors would be influenced by the broadcast of the hearings of the commission of inquiry, the next of which is scheduled for Thursday evening at prime time.
After more than a year of investigations, it will detail the day of January 6 as experienced by Donald Trump, “what has been done and what has not been done”, explained the elected Democrat on Sunday. Zoe Lofgren on ABC.
The Republican is believed to have done nothing for nearly three hours as his supporters invaded the Capitol, sowing violence and chaos and forcing elected officials to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.