'He's in a lot of trouble': Bannon left with few options after judge 'eviscerated' his legal defense
Steve Bannon speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
July 12, 2022
A reporter who has closely covered the Jan. 6 investigation said Steve Bannon has few legal options remaining after a judge smashed his defense.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols denied Bannon's request to delay his trial on contempt of Congress charges after Donald Trump abandoned his executive privilege claims, and The Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the right-wing podcaster faced intense new pressure to plead guilty.
"I think he's in a lot of trouble," Lowell said. "Judge Nichols yesterday really eviscerated his defenses. In fact, the only defenses he really has left is that he somehow misunderstood the deadlines in the subpoena or he was misinformed about the deadlines in the subpoena and he might have possibly interpreted the committee coming back to him after the deadline, when they sent a letter saying, 'We hope you still cooperate,' as somehow he was not in willful default or willful non-compliance of the subpoena. Those are the only avenues left for him to argue."
"I mean, there is nothing left for him," Lowell added. "Judge Nichols stripped every other legal defense he had. Of course, like David Schoen, his lead lawyer, was aghast. He made an interesting point, though, Judge Nichols, about the executive privilege. He said, you know, even if there was executive privilege concerns or arguments to be made, it wouldn't apply in Bannon's case because the [Department of Justice] legal memos that his lawyers are citing don't apply to a private citizen like Steve Bannon, who was a former aide to a former president by the time Jan. 6 rolled out, and was in no position to be ignoring a subpoena."
"So I think Bannon's next option is either to take his chances and go to trial and try to convince a jury [and] when he loses, to go to the appellate court and try to overturn the controlling case law, or he just pleads at this point," Lowell added.
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