On Monday, former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon surrendered himself to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with the partisan House select committee on the January 6 Capitol riot. Bannon was indicted by a grand jury on Saturday.
Bannon is accused of failing to appear for an October 14 deposition before the panel, and for refusing to provide documents to the committee. He faces a minimum of 30 days in jail, with a maximum of one year if convicted, as well as up to a $1,000 fine for each charge.
Donald Trump slammed the indictment of Bannon in a statement on Sunday. “This Country has perhaps never done to anyone what they have done to Steve Bannon and they are looking to do it to others, also,” Trump said. “If they would be so tough with China, Russia, and the world, who no longer respects us, maybe our Country would not be failing at a level at which we have never seen before. We never talk about making our Country great, and it is now heading in an unthinkable direction with the Afghanistan withdrawal, open Borders, Inflation, Woke everything, and so much more. The USA is a radicalized mess!”
CNN was on the scene when Bannon arrived at an FBI field office to turn himself in.
Bannon surrenders after indictment on Friday pic.twitter.com/2w5dBMUY8A
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 15, 2021
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has also refused to appear before the committee. Like Bannon, he will also claim that his communications with Trump are protected by executive privilege. But Trump’s request to assert executive privilege has been denied by the Biden administration—a decision that could haunt Joe Biden in the future.
“Biden has rejected our request to withhold White House information from the House Unselect Committee investigating the January 6th protest, but has not taken a stance on the insurrection that took place on November 3rd, often referred to as the Crime of the Century,” Trump said last month. “This will put the current White House in a terrible position when the inevitable request for information comes concerning the massive corruption by Hunter Biden and the already well-documented crimes committed by the Biden family, the least of which are Hunter’s paintings selling for as much as $500,000 a piece.”
Source: PJ Media
