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    House Capitol attack committee votes to recommend Steve Bannon prosecution

    US Capitol attackHouse Capitol attack committee votes to recommend Steve Bannon prosecutionPanel unanimously approves contempt of Congress citationTrump ally defied subpoena relating to 6 January insurrection Hugo Lowell in WashingtonTue 19 Oct 2021 19.57 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 20.20 EDTThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack voted on Tuesday to recommend the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, after he defied a subpoena relating to their inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.FBI raids Washington home of Russian billionaire Oleg DeripaskaRead moreThe select committee approved the contempt of Congress citation unanimously, sending the report to the Democratic-controlled House, which is expected on Thursday to authorize the panel to go to court to punish Bannon for his non-compliance.“It is essential that we get Mr Bannon’s factual and complete testimony in order to get a full accounting of the violence of January 6th and its causes,” said Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee.“Mr Bannon will comply with our investigation or he will face the consequences,” he said. “We cannot allow anyone to stand in the way of the select committee as we work to get to the facts. The stakes are too high.”Members on the select committee took the aggressive step against Bannon to sound a warning to Trump White House officials and others connected to the Capitol attack that defying subpoenas would carry grave consequences, according to a source on the panel.The select committee had issued a bevy of subpoenas to some of Trump’s closest advisers – White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his deputy Dan Scavino, defense department aide Kash Patel, and Bannon – under the threat of criminal prosecution.But under orders from the former president and his lawyers, Bannon ignored his subpoena compelling documents and testimony in its entirety. The other three Trump administration aides opened negotiations over the extent of their possible cooperation.The ramifications for Bannon’s defiance are significant: once passed by the House, the justice department transfers the case to the office of the US attorney for the District of Columbia, which is required to take the matter before a federal grand jury.In pushing to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress, the select committee has also set up a potentially perilous legal moment for Bannon as he resists the inquiry into what Trump knew in advance of efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a one-year sentence in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor offense may not ultimately lead to his cooperation and pursuing the charge could still take years.Bannon remains a key person of interest to House select committee investigators in large part because he was in constant contact with Trump and his team in the days before 6 January, as the former president strategized how to return himself to the Oval Office.He also appeared to have advance knowledge of the Capitol attack, predicting on his War Room podcast, the day before the insurrection that left five dead and 140 injured: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”In opening statements ahead of the vote, Republican congresswoman and committee member Liz Cheney said: “Mr Bannon’s and Mr Trump’s privilege arguments do appear to reveal one thing, however: they suggest that President Trump was personally involved in the planning and execution of January 6th. And we will get to the bottom of that.”But the former chief strategist to Trump indicated to the select committee he would not cooperate with his 23 September subpoena on grounds that communications involving Trump are protected by executive privilege and cannot be revealed to Congress.The legal argument faces a steep uphill battle with the Biden justice department appearing inclined to adopt a narrow interpretation on executive privilege, previously allowing top Trump justice department officials to testify to Congress about 6 January.And as the justice department examines the expected referral from the House in finer detail, prosecutors may open Trump to legal jeopardy insofar as he may have obstructed justice by ordering Bannon and other aides to defy the subpoenas.The select committee said in the contempt report that Bannon had no basis to refuse his subpoena because Trump never actually asserted executive privilege – but also because Bannon tried to use an executive privilege claim for non-executive branch materials.Within the scope of the subpoena demanding documents and testimony, the report said, included contacts with members of Congress and Trump campaign officials in the days before 6 January, which are ostensibly unrelated to communications between Bannon and Trump.The contempt report added that even if the select committee accepted his executive privilege claim, the law makes clear that even senior White House officials advising sitting presidents have the kind of immunity from congressional inquiries being claimed by Bannon.The report further noted: “If any witness so close to the events leading up to the January 6 attack could decline to provide information to the select committee, Congress would be severely hamstrung in its ability to exercise its constitutional powers.”The prospect of prosecution appears not to have worried Bannon, who spent the day before his deposition date a hundred miles away in Virginia, where he attended a Republican rally that featured a flag purportedly carried by a rioter at the Capitol attack.Trump lashed out at the select committee after it announced it would vote to hold Bannon in contempt. “They should hold themselves in criminal contempt for cheating in the election,” he said, repeating lies about a stolen election refuted by the justice department.Still, the select committee’s net appears to be closing in on the former president. Thompson, the chair of the select committee, said on CNN on Thursday that he would not rule out eventually issuing a subpoena for Trump himself.Maanvi Singh contributed reportingTopicsUS Capitol attackSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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    Colin Powell discusses the most important element of leadership in 2011 speech – video

    Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday. After his time in government, Powell remained a hugely influential commentator on US politics and public life. During a 2011 speech, he spoke about what he considered the most important element of leadership

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    ‘Can you believe this?’: key takeaways from the report on Trump’s attempt to steal the election

    Donald Trump‘Can you believe this?’: key takeaways from the report on Trump’s attempt to steal the electionThe former president and his chief of staff pressed top department of justice deputies to probe allegations of fraud in the 2020 election Sam Levine in New YorkFri 8 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 8 Oct 2021 06.09 EDTA 394-page Senate report released Thursday offers some of the most alarming details to date of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.For weeks after the November election, Trump and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, pressed acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and top Department of Justice deputies to probe fanciful allegations of election fraud, according to the report. Here are six key takeaways from the report:Jeffrey Clark was willing to carry out Trump’s wishes and tried to pressure the acting attorney generalIn a late December phone call with Trump, Rosen was surprised when the president asked if he had ever heard of “a guy named Jeff Clark”. The inquiry seemed odd to Rosen; Clark did not work on matters related to elections, the report says. House Capitol attack panel subpoenas key planners of ‘Stop the Steal’ rallyRead moreRosen would later find out that Clark, a little known justice department lawyer, had already met with Trump, an admission that left him “flabbergasted”, since Clark was his subordinate. On 28 December, Clark emailed Rosen and Richard Donoghue, the principal associate deputy attorney general, with two requests. First, he wanted them to authorize a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “on foreign election interference issues”. Clark needed the briefing, according to the report, to assess an allegation that a “Dominion [voting] machine accessed the internet through a smart thermostat with a net connecting trail leading back to China”.Clark also wanted the two top justice department officials to sign on to a letter to lawmakers in Georgia and other states announcing the justice department was probing election irregularities and urging them to convene special legislative sessions to consider alternate slates of electoral college electors. “There is no chance that I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this,” Donoghue wrote back. Rosen, Donoghue, and Clark all had a “heated” meeting that evening in which Rosen and Donoghue made it clear they would not sign.Clark tried to use a potential appointment as acting attorney general as leverage to get top justice department officials to sign his letter.Either on 31 December or 1 January, Clark told Rosen that Trump had inquired whether Clark would be willing to serve as acting attorney general if the president fired Rosen. Clark told Rosen he hadn’t yet decided, but wanted to do more “due diligence”, on election fraud claims. A few days later, he told Rosen and Donoghue that it would make it easier for him to turn down Trump’s offer if Rosen signed his letter. “He raised another thing that he might point to, that he might be able to say no [to the President], is if – that letter, if I reversed my position on the letter, which I was unwilling to do,” Rosen told the senate committee.White House lawyers and other top DoJ officials threatened to resign if Clark was named the acting attorney generalOn 3 January, Clark told Rosen that Trump intended to appoint Clark the acting attorney general that day. That set off a scramble at the justice department, where Clark and Donoghue informed the heads of the department’s various divisions what was happening. They all agreed to resign if Trump followed through.Rosen and Donoghue met with Trump in the Oval Office that evening. “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election,” Trump said to open the meeting, according to Rosen. Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, described Clark’s letter as a “murder-suicide pact” and threatened to resign if Clark was appointed.After a three-hour meeting, Trump ultimately decided not to fire Rosen.The US attorney in Atlanta resigned after Trump threatened to fire himOne casualty of the 3 January meeting was Byung Jin Pak, who was then serving as the US attorney in Atlanta. During the meeting, Trump fumed that Pak had not uncovered evidence of election fraud and accused him of being a “never Trumper”. Trump instructed Donoghue to fire Pak. But Donoghue informed Trump that Pak intended to resign the next day. Cipollone advised Trump not to fire someone who was about to resign and Trump agreed to hold off.There was a problem: Pak intended to stay in his role until inauguration day. That night, Donoghue called Pak and persuaded him to resign early.Trump replaced Pak with Bobby Christine, another federal prosecutor in Georgia, bypassing a Pak deputy who was next in line to succeed him. Donoghue told the Senate panel he believed Trump wanted Christine because he would be more likely to investigate election irregularities.Meadows, the White House chief of staff, played a key role in pressuring the justice department to investigate absurd conspiracy theories about the electionOn 29 December, Meadows asked Rosen to look into a conspiracy theory known as “Italygate” that alleged satellites had flipped Trump votes for Biden. Days later, Meadows sent Rosen a YouTube video purporting to contain evidence to back up the “Italygate” theory. The same day, Meadows asked Rosen to connect with Clark about disproven allegations in Georgia. “Can you believe this?” Rosen wrote to Donoghue. “I am not going to respond.”Meadows also asked Rosen to meet with Rudy Giuliani, then the president’s personal lawyer, a request Rosen rebuffed.Trump pressured the justice department to file a lawsuit in the supreme court seeking to invalidate the election results in six key statesIn late December, Trump asked the justice department to take the highly unusual step of filing an election lawsuit directly in the US Supreme Court. The suit would have asked the court to nullify Biden’s election victories in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.The solicitor general’s office (OSG) and the office of legal counsel (OLC) prepared memos explaining why the department could not file a lawsuit. “Among other hurdles, OSG explained that DOJ could not file an original supreme court action for the benefit of a political candidate,” the senate report says.A plain-English memo from OLC was more blunt. “[T]here is no legal basis to bring this lawsuit.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsTrump administrationUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More