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      Steve Bannon: how the Trump ally’s varied career led him to prison

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      Steve Bannon: how the Trump ally’s varied career led him to prisonThe former media entrepreneur, naval officer and investment banker was at Trump’s side during his ascent and some of his most divisive moments01:33Moments after being convicted of contempt of Congress in July, Steve Bannon, a former media entrepreneur, naval officer, investment banker and Trump administration aide, walked out of a Washington courthouse and made a declaration that summed up what the better part of the last decade of his life had been about.Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressRead more“I stand with Trump and the constitution, and I will never back off that, ever,” Bannon declared.On Friday, a federal judge sentenced Bannon to four months in jail and a $6,500 fine, for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the January 6 insurrection.It was the latest twist in the varied career of the 68-year-old far-right provocateur.Bannon was by Donald Trump’s side during his ascent to the White House and guided some of his most divisive moments, including his decision to ban travelers from Muslim-majority countries and his equivocation over a deadly white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.Bannon then met a fate common to Trump White House officials – pushed out, in his case after less than eight months and after repeatedly clashing with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser.But Bannon’s loyalty remained, and it paid off. On his last day in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, who had been convicted on federal fraud charges.Now Bannon is trying to keep his freedom again. This time he can expect no presidential pardon, at least not as long as Joe Biden is in the White House. But he will remain free while appealing his sentence, his strategy, according to people close to him, to drag out the proceedings until the January 6 committee’s mandate expires at the end of this year.“We may have lost a battle here today but we’re not going to lose this war,” Bannon said in July, after a Washington jury handed down its guilty verdict.The son of a working-class Irish Catholic family of Democrats, Bannon grew up in Virginia, attended military prep school and spent four years in the navy before graduating with a MBA from Harvard.He worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs then got into media financing, where he profited from the success of Seinfeld, one of the greatest TV comedies of all time.It was during his time as a film producer in Hollywood that Bannon met the conservative media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. Bannon took over the Breitbart News website after its founder died of a heart attack in 2012. Bannon once described the outlet as the “the platform of the alt-right”, embracing the racism and antisemitism Trump would use as fuel for his electoral success four years later.Bannon made Trump’s acquaintance in 2010, and was impressed by his stance on China and international trade. He took over as Trump campaign chair months before the election in 2016, helping hone the populist edge used to upset Hillary Clinton.Bannon co-wrote the grim “American carnage” speech Trump gave at his inauguration and helped see through divisive opening actions including pulling out of the Paris climate accords.Amid infighting within Trump’s inner circle of advisers, Bannon was pushed off the National Security Council by April, and out of the administration entirely by August.Critics decry him as a nationalist and a nihilist bent more on destroying the American political system that reforming it. Bannon describes himself as a “Tea Party populist guy” and in the past has insisted that his goal is to get the Republican party to focus its policies on the American people.Steve Bannon: ‘We’ve turned the Republicans into a working-class party’Read more“We’ve turned the Republican party into a working-class party,” he told the Guardian in 2019.Left unsaid was Bannon’s view that Trump would be best to lead that party no matter the cost. In a recording obtained by Mother Jones, Bannon described in 2020 how the then-president planned to declare victory in his re-election campaign even before all the votes were counted.“That’s our strategy,” Bannon said. “He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning [after election day], it’s going to be a firestorm.“You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. And Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting shit out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.’”TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS Capitol attackUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of Congress

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      Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressFormer Trump strategist also fined $6,500 for refusing to comply with subpoena issued by Capitol attack committee01:33Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.Steve Bannon sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress conviction – liveRead moreThe punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.The sentence handed down by the US district court judge Carl Nichols in Washington was lighter than recommended by prosecutors, who sought six months in jail and the maximum $200,000 in fines because Bannon refused to cooperate with court officials’ pre-sentencing inquiries.“Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes,” Nichols said as he handed down the sentence, adding that a failure to adequately punish the flouting of congressional subpoenas would enshrine a lack of respect to the legislative branch.Bannon, 68, had asked the court for leniency and requested in court filings for his sentence to either be halted pending the appeal his lawyers filed briefs with the DC circuit court on Thursday or otherwise have the jail term reduced to home-confinement.But Nichols denied Bannon’s requests, saying he agreed with the justice department about the seriousness of his offense and noting that he had failed to show any remorse and was yet to demonstrate that he had any intention to comply with the subpoena.The judge noted in issuing the sentence that he weighed how some factors cut in Bannon’s favor: while he did not comply with the subpoena, he did engage with the select committee and emails appeared to show he had been acting on the advice of his then-lawyer, Robert Costello.Those mitigating factors suggested that Bannon perhaps did not act in the most contemptuous manner that he could have against the subpoena, and so warranted a lighter sentence than the justice department had recommended, Nichols said.Nichols also ruled he would stay the sentence as long as Bannon filed his anticipated appeal “timely”. With his second defense lawyer, Evan Corcoran, understood to have largely finalized the brief, according to sources familiar with the matter, Bannon should meet deadlines.The far-right provocateur now faces a battle to overturn the conviction on appeal, which, the Guardian first reported, will contend the precedent that prevented his lawyers from disputing the definition of “wilful default” of a subpoena, and arguing he had acted on the advice of his lawyers, was inapplicable.After walking out of the courthouse with his lawyers into a melee of reporters and television cameras, Bannon, dressed in a military-style jacket over several navy-colored shirts, vowed that Democrats would face their “judgment day” with an appeal that would prove “bulletproof”.The former Trump White House official then climbed into a waiting SUV and returned to his nearby Washington townhouse to immediately host a victorious episode of his War Room show. A person close to Bannon described him as feeling triumphant and unrepentant.Bannon was charged with two counts of contempt Congress after his refusal to comply at all with the select committee’s subpoena demanding documents and testimony last year triggered the House of Representatives to refer him to the justice department for prosecution.The select committee had sought Bannon’s cooperation after it identified him early on in the investigation as a key player in the run-up to the Capitol attack, who appeared to have advance knowledge of Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6.Among other moments of interest, the Guardian has previously reported, Bannon received a call from Trump the night before the Capitol attack while he was at a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel and was told of then-vice president Mike Pence’s resistance to decertifying Biden’s win.The close contacts with Trump in the days and hours leading up to the Capitol attack meant Bannon was among the first targets of the investigation, and his refusal to comply with the subpoena galvanised the panel’s resolve to make an example of him with a contempt referral.During the five-day trial in July, Bannon’s legal team ultimately declined to present evidence after Nichols excluded the “advice of counsel” argument because the case law at the DC Circuit level, Licavoli v United States 1961, held that was not a valid defense for defying a subpoena.The justice department, according to Licavoli, had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bannon’s refusal to comply was deliberate and intentional, and the assistant US attorney Amanda Vaughn told the jury in closing arguments they should find the case straightforward.“The defense wants to make this hard, difficult and confusing,” Vaughn said in federal court in Washington. “This is not difficult. This is not hard. There were only two witnesses because it’s as simple as it seems.”That meant the only arguments left available to Bannon were either that he was somehow confused about the deadlines indicated on the subpoena, or that he did not realize the deadlines were concrete and failing to comply with those dates would mean he was in default.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Steve Bannon expected to appeal contempt of Congress conviction

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      Steve Bannon expected to appeal contempt of Congress convictionAppeal to contend ex-Trump strategist should’ve been allowed to argue he defied Capitol attack subpoena on advice of lawyers Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon is expected to ask a federal appeals court to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction, contending that he should have been allowed at trial to argue he defied a subpoena from the House January 6 select committee on the advice of his lawyers.The appeal will seek the DC circuit court to quash the conviction for which he is set on Friday to face a potential six month prison sentence and $200,000 in fines as recommended by the justice department, according to sources familiar with the matter.Steve Bannon: justice department urges six-month prison term in contempt caseRead moreBannon’s appeal is expected to make the case that the legal precedent that prevented US district court judge Carl Nichols from allowing his lawyers to argue the definition of “willful” defiance used at trial, as well as the fact that he had relied on the advice of counsel, was inapplicable.The argument appears to capitalize on repeated acknowledgements by Nichols in pre-trial rulings that he considered the legal precedent to be outdated and might have otherwise permitted Bannon’s lawyers to say the former aide – because of bad legal advice – did not realize he acted unlawfully.“I think that the DC Circuit may very well have gotten this wrong,” Nichols said. “The problem is, I’m not writing on a clean slate here.”Bannon’s appeal is expected to echo points raised in his sentencing memo, which complained that the precedent set by the DC circuit in Licavoli v United States 1961 – that the justice department merely had to prove Bannon intentionally defied the select committee subpoena – was outdated.The definition of “willful” for contempt of Congress prosecutions has changed since the ruling in the Licavoli case, the memo noted, and the supreme court recently has said prosecutors have to show defendants knew their conduct was unlawful in order to prove they willfully violated a statute.That should have been the standard for Bannon’s trial, the memo argued, suggesting that would have paved the way for Bannon to make the case that he did not believe defying the subpoena was unlawful after his lawyers told him he was protected by executive privilege.Bannon could face an uphill struggle with his appeal. Even if the precedent was updated, legal experts said, Bannon would still have to defend against the justice department and the select committee’s argument that Trump never actually asserted privilege for his former strategist.And even if Bannon could produce correspondence to show Trump had asserted executive privilege – to date, there has only been an email from his lawyer appearing to make that assumption – he would have still needed to attend the deposition and assert it question by question, the experts said.A spokesman for Bannon declined to comment.Bannon was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress after his refusal to comply at all with the select committee’s subpoena demanding documents and testimony last year triggered the House of Representatives to refer him to the justice department for prosecution.The select committee had sought Bannon’s cooperation after it identified him early on in the investigation as a key player in the run-up to the Capitol attack, who appeared to have advance knowledge of Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6.Among other moments of interest, the Guardian has previously reported, Bannon received a call from Trump the night before the Capitol attack while he was at a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel and was told of then vice president Mike Pence’s resistance to decertifying Biden’s win.The close contacts with Trump in the days and hours leading up to the Capitol attack meant Bannon was among the first targets of the investigation, and his refusal to comply with the subpoena galvanised the panel’s resolve to make an example of him with a contempt referral.During the five-day trial in July, Bannon’s legal team ultimately declined to present any evidence in defense after Nichols excluded the “advice of counsel” argument, and the justice department told the jury in closing arguments they should find the case straightforward.“The defense wants to make this hard, difficult and confusing,” assistant US attorney Amanda Vaughn said in federal court in Washington. “This is not difficult. This is not hard. There were only two witnesses because it’s as simple as it seems.”That meant the only arguments left available to Bannon were either that he was somehow confused about the deadlines indicated on the subpoena, or that he did not realize the deadlines were concrete and failing to comply with those dates would mean he was in default.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution

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      Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution By taking over state legislatures, Republicans hope to pass conservative amendments that cannot be electorally challengedSteve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the Trump White House who is at the forefront of the Republican march toward hard-right populism, is throwing his weight behind a movement to radically rewrite the US constitution.Bannon has devoted recent episodes of his online show the War Room to a well-funded operation which has stealthily gained ground over the past two years. Backed by billionaire donors and corporate interests, it aims to persuade state legislatures to call a constitutional convention in the hope of baking far-right conservative values into the supreme law of the land.The goal is, in essence, to turn the country into a permanent conservative nation irrespective of the will of the American people. The convention would promote policies that would limit the size and scope of the federal government, set ceilings on or even abolish taxes, free corporations from regulations, and impose restrictions on government action in areas such as abortion, guns and immigration.“This is another line of attack strategically,” Bannon told his viewers last month. “You now have a political movement that understands we need to go after the administrative state.”By “administrative state”, Bannon was referring to the involvement of the federal government and Congress in central aspects of modern American life. That includes combating the climate crisis, setting educational standards and fighting health inequities.Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party who now leads one of the largest groups advocating for the tactic, the Convention of States Action (Cosa), spelled out some of the prime objectives on Bannon’s show. “We need to say constitutionally, ‘No, the federal government cannot be involved in education, or healthcare, or energy, or the environment’,” he said.Meckler went on to divulge the anti-democratic nature of the state convention movement when he said a main aim was to prevent progressive policies being advanced through presidential elections. “The problem is, any time the administration swings back to Democrat – or radical progressive, or Marxist which is what they are – we are going to lose the gains. So you do the structural fix.”The “structural fix” involves Republican state legislatures pushing conservative amendments to America’s foundational document. By cementing the policies into the US constitution, they would become largely immune to electoral challenge.Were a convention achieved, it would mark the zenith of conservative state power in American politics. Over the past 12 years, since the eruption of the Tea Party, Republicans have extended their grip to more than half of the states in the country, imposing an increasingly far-right agenda on the heartlands.Now the plan is to take that dominance nationwide.Article V of the constitution lays out two distinct ways in which America’s core document, ratified in 1788, can be revised. In practice, all 27 amendments that have been added over the past 244 years have come through the first route – a Congress-led process whereby two-thirds of both the US House and Senate have to approve changes followed by ratification by three-quarters of the states. Meckler, working alongside other powerful interest groups and wealthy rightwing megadonors, is gunning for Article V’s second route – one that has never been tried before. It gives state legislatures the power to call a constitutional convention of their own, should two-thirds of all 50 states agree.A bar chart of party control of state legislatures since 1978.The state-based model for rewriting the US constitution is perhaps the most audacious attempt yet by hard-right Republicans to secure what amounts to conservative minority rule in which a minority of lawmakers representing less-populated rural states dictate terms to the majority of Americans. Russ Feingold, a former Democratic US senator from Wisconsin, told the Guardian that “they want to rewrite the constitution in a fundamental way that is not just conservative, it is minoritarian. It will prevent the will of ‘we the people’ being heard.”Feingold has co-authored with Peter Prindiville of the Stanford constitutional law center The Constitution in Jeopardy, a new book that sounds the alarm on the states-based convention movement. “Our goal is not to scare people, but to alert them that there is a movement on the far right that is quietly getting itself to a point where it will be almost impossible to stop a convention being called,” he said.His urgency is underlined by how active the movement has become. A convention resolution framed by Cosa has passed so far this year in four states – Wisconsin, Nebraska, West Virginia and South Carolina.The group has also been busy around November’s midterm elections, using its muscle and some $600,000 (£528,252) of its reserves to support candidates amenable to the idea. “We have built the largest grassroots activist army in American history,” Meckler told Bannon, probably hyperbolically.Bannon’s other guest on the War Room, Rick Santorum, a former Republican US senator from Pennsylvania who advises Cosa, told Bannon: “This is something that can happen very quickly. We are a lot further along than people think.”They are also much better funded than people might think. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which monitors the constitutional convention movement, estimates that it pulled in $25m (£22m) in 2020, the last year for which figures are known. The funds were split between Cosa and other influential groups on the right. They include the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a network of state politicians and corporate lobbyists which has taken up the cry for a constitutional amendment to force balanced budget restrictions on Washington.Much of the income is dark money, with the origins hidden. CMD has managed to identify some key donors – among them the Mercer Family Foundation set up by reclusive hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, and a couple of groups run by Leonard Leo, the mastermind behind the rightwing land grab in the federal courts.More than $1m (£880,265) has also been donated in the form of Bitcoin.The attraction to these groups and donors of pursuing a states route to rewriting the US constitution is easily explained. Over the past 12 years, since the eruption of the Tea Party in 2010, Republican activists have deployed extreme partisan gerrymandering to pull off an extraordinary takeover of state legislatures.Bannon is not finished: his ‘precinct strategy’ could alter US elections for yearsRead moreIn 2010, Republicans controlled both chambers of just 14 state legislatures. Today, that number stands at 31. “Republicans are near the high watermark in terms of their political control in the states, and that’s why the pro-Trump rightwing of the party is increasingly embracing the constitutional convention strategy,” said Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director.Should a convention be achieved, the plan would be to give states one vote each. There is no legal or historical basis for such an arrangement but its appeal is self-evident.One vote per state would give small rural conservative states like Wyoming (population 580,000) equal leverage to large urbanized progressive states like California (39.5 million). Collectively, small states would be in the majority and control would tip to the Republicans.Last December Santorum spelled out this minoritarian vision at a private ALEC meeting. In an audio recording obtained by CMD, Santorum said: “We have the opportunity, as a result, to have a supermajority, even though we may not even be in an absolute majority when it comes to the people who agree with us.”Pearson decried such thinking as “a profoundly anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic strategy that gives small rural states most control”.With the counting system skewed towards the conservative heartlands, the list of amendments that might be pursued is disconcertingly large. Though Meckler and his allies largely avoid talking about culture war issues, it is quite conceivable that a nationwide ban on abortion and a rescinding of gay marriage would be on the table.More openly, advocates have talked about imposing balanced budget requirements on the US government that would dramatically shrink federal resources. Some have even proposed making income tax unconstitutional.One of the more popular ideas circulating within rightwing constitutional convention circles, initially floated by the talk show host Mark Levin, is that states should grant themselves the ability to override federal statutes and supreme court rulings. It is hard to see how the federal rule of law could be sustained under such an arrangement with its unmistakable civil war undertones.Under Article V, 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention to reach the two-thirds requirement. Cosa has so far succeeded in getting 19 states to sign up, with a further six in active consideration.ALEC, which sets a narrower remit for a convention focused on its balanced budget amendment, has gone further with 28 states on board.Either way, there is a shortfall. To address it, constitutional convention leaders have invented increasingly exotic mathematical formulas for attaining the magic number, 34. “We used to call it fuzzy math, now we call it wacky math,” Pearson said.Advocates filed a lawsuit in Texas in February that tried to get the courts to force a constitutional convention on grounds that they had reached 34 states already – they cobbled together unrelated state convention calls, including some dating back to the 1800s. In July two bills were also introduced to the US House requiring Congress to call a convention immediately.David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the willingness to adopt outlandish logic should sound further alarm bells. It raised the stakes even higher for the November elections.“The midterms are crucial,” Super said. “Changes at state-level matter, but will not get them to 34 states. If they can take control of Congress, they could bridge the gap.”Paradoxically, what happens to Congress in the midterms could have the biggest impact on the future prospects of a states-based constitutional convention. Should the Republicans take back control of the US House and Senate they would be in a position to advance radical Republicans’ demands.“We’ve already seen a willingness to play fast and loose with the math on all sorts of things in Congress,” Super said. “I would not be surprised if they were to make a serious attempt to adopt one of these bizarre accounting theories should they take control of both chambers in November.”That could mean a rapid dash for a convention before most Americans would have woken up to the danger.“If the Republicans prevail in Congress, they could try to call a convention right away,” Feingold said. “People should know that when they go to vote in November – this could fundamentally undermine their rights in a way that is both disturbing and permanent.”TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsUS constitution and civil libertiesRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Why is the American right suddenly so interested in psychedelic drugs? | Ross Ellenhorn and Dimitri Mugianis

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      Why is the American right suddenly so interested in psychedelic drugs?Ross Ellenhorn and Dimitri MugianisMagic mushrooms are no magic cure for society’s ills, and a substance as powerful as psychedelics can be dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands Psychedelic therapies are receiving unprecedented financial and political support – and much of it comes from the right. Peter Thiel has invested extensively in the emerging psychedelic therapeutic industry. Jordan Peterson is a psilocybin fan. In 2018, the Mercer Foundation donated $1m to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Maps), the leading US psychedelics research organization, for studies of MDMA treatment of PTSD in veterans.The Mercer family also supports the American right wing and climate crisis denial. They’re a long way from Woodstock – but Maps and some other psychedelic advocates seem glad for any support they can get.Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake | Bernie SandersRead moreTo be sure, there are plenty of leftists and liberals who endorse the medical use of psychedelics. In July, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered a successful amendment to the new $768bn defense spending bill to support increased research into psychedelic treatment for veterans and active-duty service members. So did Dan Crenshaw, a navy veteran and Republican representative from Texas. Matt Gaetz, Republican from Florida and noted misogynist, offered a similar amendment.Psychedelics have long been associated with utopian experiments. Today, some researchers dream of finding a scientific basis for the hypothesis that psychedelics might help end intractable political conflict. Last year, Maps and Imperial College London organized a joint ayahuasca trip for Israelis and Palestinians. In 2018, Imperial College received much attention for a tiny study suggesting that one dose of psilocybin therapy reduced support for “authoritarian attitudes”. Could psychedelics be the cure for anti-democratic tendencies? Rick Doblin, founder of Maps, has even suggested that psychedelic use could help stop environmental degradation.Psychedelics can certainly increase openness – but this can be openness to Nazism, eco-fascism or UFO cults as well as to peace and love. Julius Evola, an Italian philosopher and fascist admired by both Hitler and Steve Bannon, was a staunch LSD advocate. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who recently made headlines for sending buses of migrants to New York, Washington and Chicago, signed a 2021 state bill to study the medical benefits of psychedelics. Steve Bannon supports legalized psychedelics, too.As professors Brian Pace and Neşe Devenot point out in their work rebutting the science on psychedelics as a kind of medicine for authoritarianism, psychedelics have never had a purely leftwing fanbase. Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, experimented extensively with psychedelics in his youth. The founder of 8chan, the now-defunct extremist message board that hosted the manifestos of several mass shooters, was inspired by a mushroom trip.Why is the American right so intrigued by these substances today? The most obvious answer is money. As psychedelics are absorbed into mainstream medicine, they promise to become another American cash cow. Money will come from patents on novel formulations and by patenting and providing the associated treatment techniques.There may be political factors at play, as well. Was the Mercer Foundation’s donation to Maps motivated by a desire to shore up American military resources by palliating the harms suffered by those sent to fight those wars? The military-industrial complex is even more lucrative than the pharmaceutical sector, but those weapons still require human beings to deploy them. Is rightwing psychedelic funding an attempt to ensure the continued viability of American wars around the world?And, if MDMA is so helpful in the treatment of PTSD, why are veterans given special priority in a society that has traumatized so many people? What about the trauma of racism, of poverty, of police violence and mass incarceration – problems actively increased by rightwing policies supported by people like the Mercers?Psychedelics have the potential to help people break out of repetitive, destructive thoughts, to help them discover new possibilities and new joy. But the effects of psychoactive drugs can never be detached from their setting.It’s foolish to imagine positive transformation achieved with the help of Rebekah Mercer, Steve Bannon or Greg Abbott. After all, these are the same people who vociferously oppose universal healthcare and deny climate change. With their support, we can expect psychedelic medicine for the elite, as a tool of state power or an engine of conspiracy theories, rather than a liberationist psychedelic movement. Until we have universal, single-payer healthcare, the benefits of psychedelic therapy will be out of reach for most Americans.And it’s naïve to expect psychedelics to change your mind for the better (in Michael Pollan’s formulation) when they’re a gift of the right wing, or when they’re offered within a framework of gross inequality. Look at Burning Man: this pseudo-utopia has become a playground of Silicon Valley’s ultra-rich. It leaves the desert strewn with thousands of abandoned bicycles and produces 12-hour traffic jams in the desert – which is hotter than ever thanks to our profligate burning of fossil fuels. With the wrong company, a journey of self-discovery can lead to even deeper solipsism. In fact, the illusion of transcendence can be used to justify greater selfishness, even cruelty.Psychedelic therapies – like all other forms of care – should be available to those who need them, not only to those with money and connections and political utility. In the psychedelic community there’s a lot of talk about “integration”, a processing of your trip. But this “integration” is too often limited to the individual. To be truly beneficial, psychedelics should be integrated into a social vision of equality and justice, one that opposes the sacrifice of human life and health at the altar of military spending and empire building, one that values every life regardless of race, nationality, religion, gender or class.Magic mushrooms are no magic cure for society’s ills, and a substance as powerful as psychedelics can be dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Psychedelic advocates need to stop cozying up to the right and expand their mission to encompass a commitment to broader social justice.
      Ross Ellenhorn is a sociologist, psychotherapist and author and the founder and CEO of Ellenhorn. His new book, Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life, is out on 1 November. Dimitri Mugianis is a harm reductionist, activist, musician, poet, writer, and anarchist, with over two decades of experience as a psychedelic practitioner. Ellenhorn and Mugianis are the founders of Cardea
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionMedical researchPeter ThielSteve BannonGreg AbbottHealthcommentReuse this content More

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      Steve Bannon: justice department urges six-month prison term in contempt case

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      Steve Bannon: justice department urges six-month prison term in contempt caseFormer Trump strategist found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress for ignoring subpoena from Capitol attack committee Steve Bannon should be sentenced to six months in prison and a $200,000 fine for “his sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress”, the justice department said in a legal filing on Monday.Bannon, the former Donald Trump White House strategist, was found guilty on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in July for ignoring a subpoena from the US House committee investigating the January 6 attack.‘Devoid of shame’: January 6 cop Michael Fanone on Trump’s Republican partyRead moreBannon faces up to a year in prison on each count on which he was found guilty. The punishment proposed Monday is at the “top end” of government sentencing guidelines and was needed because Bannon “consistently acted in bad faith and with the purpose of frustrating the committee’s work”, US justice department prosecutors wrote.They said Bannon had refused to cooperate with the committee in any way, except for instances in which he attempted a quid pro quo of exchanging information for dismissal of his criminal case.Bannon’s “contempt of Congress was absolute and undertaken in bad faith”, prosecutors added in the filing, which was submitted ahead of the ex-Trump adviser’s scheduled sentencing Friday. “To date, he remains in default: more than one year after accepting service of the committee’s subpoena, [Bannon] has not produced a single document or answered a single deposition question – nor has he endeavored to do so, except as part of a duplicitous quid pro quo.”Earlier this month, the FBI interviewed Timothy Heaphy, a senior investigator on the January 6 committee. Heaphy told an FBI agent that just before Bannon’s trial this summer, Bannon’s lawyer Evan Corcoran contacted him. Corcoran wanted to see if the committee would be willing to support a dismissal of Bannon’s charges in exchange for testimony, according to a document filed in court. Heaphy declined, since the committee was not involved in criminal charges and said he had not heard from Bannon’s lawyer since.The filing details numerous instances over the last several months in which Bannon dangled the prospect of cooperation with the committee in exchange for delaying and dismissing criminal charges against him.“His noncompliance has been complete and unremitting,” the justice department wrote. “And his effort to exact a quid pro quo with the committee to persuade the Department of Justice to delay trial and dismiss the charges against him should leave no doubt that his contempt was deliberate and continues to this day.”Prosecutors’ filing also said Bannon had refused to provide financial information to the probation office as part of its effort to evaluate what kind of fine he could pay. Bannon has said he would pay the maximum punishment instead.“Rather than disclose his financial records, a requirement with which every other defendant found guilty of a crime is expected to comply, [Bannon] informed [sentencing investigators] that he would prefer instead to pay the maximum fine,” the justice department argued. “So be it.”Prosecutors also pointed to Bannon’s comments on his podcast in which he used violent and intimidating rhetoric against members of the committee. “We’re going medieval on these people, we’re going to savage our enemies,” he said in one July appearance.“Through his public platforms, [Bannon] has used hyperbolic and sometimes violent rhetoric to disparage the committee’s investigation, personally attack the committee’s members, and ridicule the criminal justice system,” the filing said. “The … statements prove that his contempt was not aimed at protecting executive privilege or the constitution, rather it was aimed at undermining the committee’s efforts to investigate an historic attack on government.”The January 6 committee, which has relied heavily on testimony from former Trump administration official, held what was likely its final public hearing last week. It ended the meeting by voting 9-0 to subpoena Trump.The department is also pursuing criminal charges against Peter Navarro, another Trump White House adviser, who has refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violence

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      ‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violenceVideo footage obtained from a Danish documentary film-maker shows Trump ally discussing violence after 2020 election The House January 6 committee on Thursday played as promised video footage of the Republican operative and Trump ally Roger Stone discussing the need for violence after the 2020 election, before 6 January 2021, the day of the deadly Capitol attack.“Let’s just hope we’re celebrating,” Stone said, in footage obtained from a Danish documentary film-maker.“I really do suspect that [the election result] will still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine tenths of law. ‘No we won, fuck you. Sorry, you’re wrong, fuck you.’”In another clip, Stone said: “I say fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”To laughter, an associate with Stone said: “Start smashing pumpkins, if you know what I mean.”In her opening statement at a hearing officially designated as a business meeting, to set up votes on further investigations, the California Democrat Zoe Lofgren laid out the committee’s interest in Stone.Stone, she said, “is a political operative with a reputation for dirty tricks. In November 2019 he was convicted of lying to Congress and other crimes and sentenced to more than three years in prison. He’s also a longtime adviser to President Trump, and was in communication with President Trump throughout 2020. Mr Trump pardoned Roger Stone on 23 December 2020.”Stone, she said, “apparently knew of Mr Trump’s intentions” to reject the election result long before election day.The congresswoman said: “Although we don’t yet have all the relevant records of Roger Stone’s communications, even Stone’s own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Donald Trump on 27 December as preparations for January 6 were under way.”Stone, Lofgren showed, discussed the idea of appointing a special counsel to “ensure those who are attempting to steal the 2020 election through voter fraud are charged and convicted and to ensure Donald Trump continues as our president” – an idea the president is known to have discussed with allies and advisers.Lofgren mentioned links between Stone and the Capitol attack, including his attendance at the Willard hotel the night before January 6, as Trump allies planned their actions the next day, and his links with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, extremist rightwing groups who led the Capitol riot.“Individuals from both of these organisations have been charged with a crime of seditious conspiracy,” Lofgren said. “… Multiple associates of Roger Stone from both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have been charged with this crime.”Lofgren also played footage of Stone refusing to answer questions from the committee, invoking his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.The committee also played footage of Steve Bannon, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair who became a White House strategist, discussing what would happen on January 6, and revealed a hitherto unseen memo from Tom Fitton, another pro-Trump activist.“The select committee got this pre-prepared statement from the National Archives,” Lofgren said, displaying and describing the draft statement sent by Fitton on 31 October, three days before election day.According to Fitton’s proposed memo, Trump would simply “declare we had an election today and I won”.TopicsUS Capitol attackRoger StoneUS politicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officials

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      Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officialsThe ex-president’s cries of a witch hunt by law enforcement, echoed by his allies, have imperiled officers’ physical safety Donald Trump’s non-stop drive to paint the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents as a political witch hunt is drawing rebukes from ex-justice department and FBI officials who warn such attacks can spur violence and pose a real threat to the physical safety of law enforcement.But the concerns have not deterred Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump allies from making inflammatory remarks echoing the former US president.Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly foundRead moreThe unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally.Before the 8 August raid, Trump and his attorneys stonewalled FBI and US National Archives requests for the return of all classified documents and did not fully comply with a grand jury subpoena in a criminal probe of Trump’s hoarding of government documents.The FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and club recovered 33 boxes with over 100 classified documents, adding to the 200 classified records Trump had earlier returned in response to multiple federal requests.Trump’s high decibel attacks on law enforcement officials for trying to recover large quantities of classified documents including some that reportedly had foreign nuclear secrets was palpable in Pennsylvania recently when Trump at a political rally branded the FBI and justice department “political monsters” and labelled president Joe Biden “an enemy of the state”.The day before in Pennsylvania, to coincide with a major Biden speech about threats to democracy posed by Trump and some of his allies, McCarthy mimicked Trump’s high decibel attacks on the court-approved FBI raid by calling it an “assault on democracy”.Former law enforcement officials and scholars warn that using such conspiratorial rhetoric impugning the motives and actions of justice department and the FBI runs the risk of inciting threats of violence and actual attacks, fears that have already been proven warranted.Consider Trump supporter Ricky Shiffer, who posted angry messages about the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump Social, and then on 12 August armed himself with an assault rifle and attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati. After fleeing the scene he was hunted down and killed by police.In another sign of potential violence, federal judge Bruce Reinhart in Florida, who had approved the FBI warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, reportedly received death threats after his name was cited in press accounts.“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian. “It’s a chorus led by Trump but that includes elected officials at every level. It is dangerous and unacceptable.”Bromwich added: “It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”Similarly, Chuck Rosenberg, a former US attorney for the sastern district of Virginia and ex-chief of staff to former FBI director James Comey, told the Guardian: “The attacks on federal law enforcement are sickening and reckless.”To historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has studied authoritarian leaders and wrote the book Strongmen, Trump’s attacks on the FBI and justice department and his retention of classified documents are consistent with his “authoritarian” leadership style“It’s very typical of authoritarians to claim that they’re the victims and that there are witch hunts against them,” Ben-Ghiat told the Guardian.Trump’s furious assaults on law enforcement also targeted the National Archives and Records Administration, causing a notable uptick in threats against the agency, according to sources quoted by the Washington Post.“No NARA official involved in negotiating the return of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago would have acted with any motive other than to ensure the safe return of all of the presidential records back into the custody of the government,” said Jason R Baron, the former director of litigation at the US National Archives. “It is unfortunate that some would impugn the motives of NARA staff in simply doing their job.”The frenzied attacks on law enforcement began almost immediately after the raid and included some especially rabid Trump supporters.Former White House adviser Bannon, who has been convicted on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 panel, made unsupported claims to conspiracy monger Jones on Infowars that the FBI planted evidence against Trump during the Mar-a-Lago raid, and that the “deep state” is planning to kill Trump.“I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump,” said Bannon, who on 8 September was charged by New York prosecutors with fraud, money laundering and conspiracy involving his role in a private fundraising scheme to fund constructing the US-Mexico border wall.Right before he left office, Trump pardoned Bannon who had been indicted on similar federal charges involving fraud and the border wall.Graham provoked heavy criticism for making the suggestion in a Fox News interview that the FBI raid and investigation would lead to “riots in the street”, if charges were filed against Trump.After critics noted Graham’s comments could fuel violence, Graham doubled down a week later saying he was just trying to “state the obvious”.In a twist, some veteran justice department prosecutors point out that predictions of violence can potentially be criminal.“The risk is that predictions of violence can easily become threats of violence bordering on extortion,” former justice department prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig told the Guardian. “Explicitly calling for violence against the government can, in context, become criminal. When Trump loyalists like Bannon and Graham seem to cross that line, they are risking criminal prosecution.”On another front, even some former close allies of Trump say that his shifting and hard edged attacks on law enforcement look desperate and don’t pass the smell test.William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who formerly was a close ally, told Fox News on 2 September he didn’t see any reason why classified documents were at Mar-a-Lago once Trump left office.“People say this was unprecedented,” Barr told Fox News “But it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?”To historian Ben-Ghiat, the fact that “Trump had those classified documents and they were mixed in with golf balls and family photos is very typical of authoritarian type leaders who don’t recognize any divides between public and private. Everything is theirs to trade, to sell and to use as leverage.”For Bromwich, the attacks on law enforcement by Trump and his ardent allies is unprecedented and very dangerous.“For those of us who have spent time with federal law enforcement personnel, the idea that they are members of the deep state or doing the bidding of the radical left is ridiculous. In my experience, the majority are conservative and Republican. Whatever their politics, they don’t let their political views affect their work.”“The search of Mar-a-Lago was indeed unprecedented. It was preceded by an unprecedented and colossal theft of government property by the former president.”TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpMar-a-LagoFBILaw (US)RepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More