'Remarkable': Stunned columnist adds Steve Bannon to Trump's growing 'team of felons'

Steve Bannon on Monday heads to a federal lock-up, becoming the eighth in the inner circle of former President Donald Trump — himself a convicted felon — to face prison, a new tally shows.

MSNBC producer Steve Benen counts 13 people — Trump among them — who have either been found or pleaded guilty in America's criminal courts.

"The number of people in the Republican’s orbit who’ve been convicted of crimes in recent years is so great, The Washington Post once described it as the 'remarkable universe of criminality' surrounding the former president," Benen writes. "That was five years ago. It’s even more remarkable now."

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Benen does not reference in his Monday column recent calls that President Joe Biden drop out of the 2024 presidential race, but he has 13 reasons why he feels Trump is unfit to reclaim the White House.

Chief among them is Bannon, the former campaign operative who was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 investigation committee.

The columnist says Bannon only has himself to blame.

"Bannon nevertheless refused to cooperate," writes Benen. "A jury later convicted Bannon — his lawyers struggled to present much of a defense — ultimately leading to his prison sentence, which was imposed by a Trump-appointed judge."

Benen chides Bannon for his repeated and failed efforts to dodge that sentence — which will land him behind bars as his boss tries to remount his third presidential campaign — then raised the alarm about the broader implications with a comment from presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

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“With Lincoln, they had a team of rivals,” Brinkley reportedly said. “With Trump, you have a team of felons.”

Benen provides his readers with a list:

1. Donald Trump: Convicted of falsifying business records and awaiting a sentencing hearing on July 11.
2. Paul Manafort: Trump’s former campaign chairman, convicted and sentenced to prison.
3. Rick Gates: Trump’s former campaign vice chairman, convicted and sentenced to prison.
4. Steve Bannon: Trump’s former chief strategist, convicted and reporting to prison. Bannon also faces a trial on wire fraud and money laundering charges.
5. Michael Cohen: Trump’s former personal lawyer, convicted and sentenced to prison.
6. Roger Stone: Trump’s former adviser and former campaign aide, convicted and sentenced to prison.
7. Peter Navarro: Trump’s former adviser and former White House aide, convicted and currently in prison.
8. George Papadopoulos: Trump’s former campaign adviser, convicted and sentenced to prison.
9. Allen Weisselberg: Former Trump Organization CFO, convicted and sentenced to prison. Weisselberg also pleaded guilty to perjury.
10. Michael Flynn: Trump’s former White House national security advisor, convicted.
11. Elliott Broidy: Vice chair of Trump’s inaugural committee, pleaded guilty to federal charges related to illegal lobbying.
12. Kenneth Chesebro: Trump's former lawyer, pleaded guilty in the former president's election racketeering case in Georgia.
13. Sidney Powell:Trump's former lawyer, pleaded guilty in the former president's election racketeering case in Georgia.

Benen admits to gaps in his list.

"Did I mention that former president’s business was itself found guilty of tax fraud?" he writes "This does not include the fact that a jury held Trump liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. It also doesn’t include the fake electors who’ve been charged in jurisdictions across the country, or the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” lawyer, who was recently indicted on election-related crimes."

There's another key omission in Benen's list that he'd like readers to keep in mind.

"Some of the aforementioned men were ultimately pardoned by Trump, who doled out pardons as if they were party favors before exiting the Oval Office," he writes. "This doesn’t change the scope of the broader picture."