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      Trump’s lackeys would rather defy US Congress than anger their old boss. Sad! | Lloyd Green

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      Trump’s lackeys would rather defy US Congress than anger their old boss. Sad!Lloyd GreenBannon and Meadows are trying to become heroes for Trump’s base – and secure seats at the table in the event of a second Trump presidency Late Tuesday night, the House of Representatives voted to hold Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff, in criminal contempt of Congress. Whether Meadows is formally charged is now up to the justice department and a federal grand jury.If indicted, Meadows would be the second member of the Trump administration under a cloud of pending prosecution – alongside Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign guru, who also played an integral role in the run-up to the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.For Bannon and Meadows alike, their challenges to the House special committee are a mixture of theatrics and political self-preservation. Both men yearn for a seat at Trump’s righthand if a second Trump presidency comes to pass. Beyond that, they want to be heroes to the ex-president’s base.Obviously, Meadows’s task is more complicated. Before his latest change of heart, he had delivered thousands of pages of documents to the special committee, including emails and texts from Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, and Fox News’s Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham pleading for Trump to stop the riot.And then there are the revelations contained in Meadows’s recent memoir, The Chief’s Chief. There on the page, he admits that Trump had tested positive for Covid days before the first presidential debate. In other words, he and Trump engaged in a coverup that potentially jeopardized the life of Joe Biden.From the looks of things, Meadows is now engaged in a salvage operation. As for Trump, he has made his displeasure towards Meadows known, labeling him “fucking stupid” and damning his book as “fake news”.Not surprisingly, sales of The Chief’s Chief have languished, according to Amazon. Beyond that, Meadows looks ridiculous.Let’s recap. Here, Meadows turned over reams of records to a congressional committee that has Trump in its crosshairs, and then belatedly refused to appear before that very same committee after publishing a book and spilling his guts.To top it off, Meadows has also invoked the doctrine of “executive privilege”, despite the fact that Trump never asserted that claim on Meadows’s behalf.Meadows’s perorations are incoherent and craven. In contrast, Bannon has remained singularly defiant, going above and beyond the directives purportedly issued by Trump.According to Bannon, Trump had sought to limit the purview of Bannon’s testimony and document production to non-privileged matters. Bannon, however, took that a step further, and stiff-armed the committee: no documents and testimony. For all intents and purposes, his motto is “catch me if you can”, with an extended middle finger that all can see.Unlike Meadows, Bannon was not collecting a federal paycheck on 6 January – he had left the White House more than three years earlier. How Bannon’s post-election communications with Trump could be covered by executive privilege remains unclear, a fact that has not escaped notice.As framed by the committee: “There is no conceivable executive privilege claim that could bar all of the select committee’s requests or justify Mr Bannon’s flat refusal to appear for the required deposition.”Already, Bannon and Meadows have spawned at least one copycat – Peter Navarro, a Trump economic adviser who, in a book of his own, has cast Mike Pence as Brutus to Trump’s Caesar.More to the point, according to published reports, Navarro recently defied a subpoena issued by a separate House select committee that is examining the Trump administration’s response to Covid. In his letter to the committee, Navarro wrote that Trump told him to “protect executive privilege and not let these unhinged Democrats discredit our great accomplishments”. Whether contempt charges will follow Navarro is the subject of speculation.Regardless, Trump alums’ claims of privilege appear shakier by the day. Last week, an intermediate federal appeals court rejected Trump’s assertion of executive privilege in the face of the select committee’s bid for documents from the national archives.According to the court: “Former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the political branches over these documents.”Then on Tuesday of this week, US district judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, rejected Trump’s attempt to block the treasury department from handing over his tax records to the House’s ways and means Committee. “A long line of supreme court cases requires great deference to facially valid congressional inquiries. Even the special solicitude accorded former presidents does not alter the outcome,” McFadden wrote.Against this backdrop, claims of executive privilege by Bannon, Meadows and Navarro appear to be more noise than signal. Trump remains the main prize – and it looks like Representative Liz Cheney is gunning for him.In summarizing Meadows’ texts, Cheney observed: “Mr Meadows’s testimony will bear on another key question before this committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’s official proceeding to count electoral votes?” Cheney’s language mirrored that of Section 1512(c) of Title 18 of the US code, a felony punishable by as much as 20 years in prison.Trump’s time outside office appears as tempestuous as his time behind the Resolute Desk. As for Meadows and Bannon, they are playing supporting roles. In the end, the spotlight belongs to their ex-boss.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS Capitol attackUS CongressMark MeadowsSteve BannonDonald TrumpDonald Trump JrcommentReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent

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      Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent
      House panel investigating Trump supporters’ deadly riot
      Former White House chief of staff has not co-operated
      Interview: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence
      The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is likely to decide this week whether to charge Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final White House chief of staff, with criminal contempt of Congress, a key panel member said.Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spatRead more“I think we will probably make a decision this week on our course of conduct with that particular witness and maybe others,” Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chair of the House intelligence committee, told CNN’s State of the Union.Schiff also said he was concerned about the Department of Justice, for a perceived lack of interest in investigating Trump’s own actions, including asking officials in Georgia to “find” votes which would overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The 6 January committee is investigating the attack on the Capitol by supporters who Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Trump was impeached with support from 10 House Republicans but acquitted when only seven senators defected. The select committee contains only two Republicans, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who broke with Trump over 6 January.“We tried to hold the former president accountable through impeachment,” Schiff said. “That’s the remedy that we have in Congress. We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former president’s misconduct as well as those around him.”Asked about Meadows – who is due to publish a memoir, The Chief’s Chief, on 7 December – Schiff said: “I can’t go into you know, communications that we’re having or haven’t had with particular witnesses.“But we are moving with alacrity with anyone who obstructs the committee, and that was really the case with Mr Bannon, it would be the case with Mr Meadows and Mr Clark or any others.”Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist, pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal contempt, the first pursued by Congress and the DoJ since 1982. Facing a fine and jail time, on Thursday Bannon filed a request that all documents in his case be made public.Like Bannon and Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official, has refused to co-operate with the House committee. Lawyers for Trump and his allies have claimed executive privilege, the doctrine which deals with the confidentiality of communications between a president and his aides. Many experts say executive privilege does not apply to former presidents. The Biden White House has waived it.“It varies witness to witness,” Schiff said, “but we discuss as a committee and with our legal counsel what’s the appropriate step to make sure the American people get the information. We intend to hold public hearings again soon to bring the public along with us and show what we’re learning in real time. But we’re going to make these decisions very soon.”Schiff said he could not “go into the evidence that we have gathered” about Trump’s role in the events of 6 January, around which five people died and on which the vice-president, Mike Pence, was hidden from a mob which chanted for his hanging.“I think among the most important questions that we’re investigating,” Schiff said, “is the complete role of the former president.“That is, what did he know in advance about propensity for violence that day? Was this essentially the back-up plan for the failed [election] litigation around the country? Was this something that was anticipated? How was it funded, whether the funders know about what was likely to happen that day? And what was the president’s response as the attack was going on, as his own vice-president was being threatened?‘A xenophobic autocrat’: Adam Schiff on Trump’s threat to democracyRead more“I think among the most, the broadest category of unknowns are those surrounding the former president. And we are determined to get answers.”Schiff was also asked about suggestions, including from Amit Mehta, a judge overseeing cases against Capitol rioters, nearly 700 of whom have been charged, that Trump might seem to be being let off the hook by the Department of Justice.Schiff said: “I am concerned that there does not appear to be an investigation, unless it’s being done very quietly by the justice department of … the former president on the phone with the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to find, really demanding he find 11,780 votes that don’t exist, the precise number he would need to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in that state.“I think if you or I were on that call and reported we’d be under investigation [or] indictment by now for a criminal effort to defraud the people in Georgia and the people in the country.“So that specifically I’m concerned about.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Steve Bannon pleads not guilty to criminal contempt of Congress

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      Steve Bannon pleads not guilty to criminal contempt of CongressBannon faces a possible prison term and fines for refusing to cooperate with congressional investigation of the Capitol attack Steve Bannon has pleaded not guilty to two charges of criminal contempt of Congress, over his defiance of a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol.In documents filed on Wednesday, the rightwing gadfly, a former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist, waived his right to a formal reading of the indictment against him.Contempt of Congress is punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. No one has been charged with it since 1983. Bannon faces one count for refusing to appear for a deposition before the House committee and a second for refusing to produce documents.He and other Trump aides summoned by the committee have invoked executive privilege, claiming communications with Donald Trump around the Capitol attack are protected by that constitutional dictum.But the Biden White House has declined to invoke executive privilege in most cases – and Bannon was not working for Trump at the time of the attack on the Capitol, on 6 January this year. Mark Meadows, then White House chief of staff, has also ignored the House committee.The attack on the Capitol followed a rally near the White House at which Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, which he falsely maintains was the result of electoral fraud.Five people died around the riot, including a police officer who died the next day and one rioter shot by law enforcement. About 140 officers were injured. Four later killed themselves.Trump was impeached for a second time, for inciting an insurrection. It was the most bipartisan impeachment ever, supported by 10 House Republicans. But only seven GOP senators found Trump guilty, ensuring his acquittal.Bannon is now represented by Bruce Schoen, a defense lawyer in Trump’s second impeachment trial. The judge in Bannon’s case is Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee.Bannon helped stoke “Stop the Steal” efforts which culminated in the rally near the White House and the attack on the Capitol. The House select committee is also investigating Bannon’s links to a “command centre” set up at the Willard Hotel, near the White House, in the days before the riot.The committee has noted a comment Bannon made on his podcast on 5 January: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”Bannon, who has boasted of a communications strategy based on misinformation – or “flooding the zone with shit” – spoke to reporters outside court on Monday. His prosecution, he said, was a politically motivated attack by President Biden, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.TopicsUS Capitol attackSteve BannonUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Steve Bannon in court on contempt charges for defying Capitol attack subpoena

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      Steve Bannon in court on contempt charges for defying Capitol attack subpoenaTrump ally, indicted after defying subpoena from House panel, urges supporters to ‘stay focused, stay on message’

      US politics – live coverage
      Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former president Donald Trump, appeared in court on Monday charged with contempt of Congress, regarding the investigation of the deadly Capitol attack.‘Terrifying for American democracy’: is Trump planning for a 2024 coup?Read moreBannon did not enter a plea, and the brief hearing determined that he be arraigned on Thursday. He was released after being ordered to surrender his passport, report once a week to pre-trial services and report travel plans.An audio feed of the hearing was broadcast due to coronavirus restrictions.Judge Robin Meriweather, presiding, said: “Mr Bannon, would you please stand and raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear that you will well and truly answer the questions propounded to you by the court, so help you God?”Bannon assented and the judge thanked him.Meriweather then read the charges. Bannon faces two counts of criminal contempt: one for refusing to appear for a congressional deposition and the other for refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena.Each count carries between 30 days and a year in jail. The indictment is the first for criminal contempt of Congress in nearly four decades.Bannon’s arraignment on Thursday at 11am will be overseen by US district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee.Earlier, Bannon turned himself in to an FBI field office in Washington. He was surrounded by photographers and a protester holding a sign that said “Coup plotter” as he stepped out of a black vehicle at about 9.30am.Livestreaming on his War Room show, which has a huge following among Trump supporters, he said: “I don’t want anybody to take their eye off the ball. We’re taking down the Biden regime every day. I want you guys to stay focused, stay on message. Remember, signal not noise. This is all noise, not signal.”The 67-year-old was taken into custody.Bannon, Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 and then White House chief strategist in the first year of Trump’s presidency, was indicted on Friday after defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election.Bannon, a former executive chairman of Breitbart News, pushed false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. On 5 January, he prophesied on his podcast: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in USRead moreThat evening he was part of a gathering of Trump allies at the Willard hotel in Washington that the House committee has called the “war room”.Bannon refused to cooperate with the committee, citing an assertion of executive privilege by Trump. Legal experts argue that this has little standing given that Bannon was a private citizen at the time of the insurrection. Last month, the House voted 229-202 to hold him in contempt.Joe Walsh, a Trump critic and former Republican congressman, tweeted: “Steve Bannon attacks our democracy and incites violence every day. And millions of people listen to him. And elected Republicans are afraid to call him out.”A second expected witness, the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, defied his own subpoena from the committee on Friday. Trump has also intensified his legal battles to withhold documents and testimony about the insurrection.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Bannon may not be only Trump ally indicted over Capitol attack – Schiff

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      Bannon may not be only Trump ally indicted over Capitol attack – Schiff
      6 January panel member: DoJ move may ‘shake loose’ others
      Former chief of staff Mark Meadows has ignored subpoena
      Is Trump planning a 2024 coup?
      Criminal charges are possible for more associates of Donald Trump refusing to cooperate with the House committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack, a senior Democrat warned on Sunday, two days after the indictment of former White House adviser Steve Bannon.Republican senator won’t condemn Trump for defending chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’Read moreAdam Schiff, chair of the House intelligence committee and a member of the panel investigating the deadly Capitol riot, also said some witnesses could be offered immunity in exchange for testimony in order to advance the inquiry.He told NBC’s Meet the Press he believed “without a doubt” that the justice department decision to charge Bannon with contempt of Congress would “shake loose” defiant Trump associates.That could include the former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who did not show up for a deposition before the select committee on Friday, shortly before Bannon’s indictment was announced.“Now that witnesses see that if they don’t cooperate, if they don’t fulfill their lawful duty when subpoenaed, that they too may be prosecuted, it will have a very strong focusing effect on their decision making,” Schiff said.“Even before the justice department acted, it influenced other witnesses who were not going to be Steve Bannon. “When ultimately witnesses decide, as Meadows has, that they’re not even going to bother showing up, that they have that much contempt for the law, then it pretty much forces our hand and we’ll move quickly.”Schiff would not be drawn on whether that meant the committee would issue a criminal contempt referral for Meadows, who, unlike Bannon, was a government employee on 6 January. But he said the panel would decide quickly, and that it wanted to make sure “we have the strongest possible case to present to the justice department, and for the justice department to present to a grand jury”.Meadows’ lawyer has said his client will not appear before the committee unless compelled to do so by a judge.Schiff conceded that certain witnesses, whom he did not identify, could receive limited immunity instead of criminal referral in exchange for their cooperation, the decisions to be made on a case by case basis.“With certain specific witnesses, we ought to consider it,” he said. “But as that kind of immunity makes it very difficult to prosecute not just them, but sometimes others, we need to think about it very carefully.”Schiff said he saw the developments “as an early test of whether our democracy was recovering” from the turmoil of the Trump administration.“Basically … the Republican party, at the top levels, that is Donald Trump and those around him, seem to feel that they’re above the law and free to thwart it. And there’s something admirable about thumbing your nose at the institutions of our government.“Bannon did what he did because for four years that’s what worked. They could hold Republican party conventions on the White House grounds. They could fire inspectors general, they could retaliate against whistleblowers. It was essentially a lawless presidency and they were proud of it. That ought to concern every American. We need a reestablishment of the rule of law in this country and I’m glad to see that that’s happening.”Bannon’s indictment, and the threat of charges for Meadows, marked a significant escalation in the House committee’s efforts to get to the bottom of the 6 January riot and Trump’s attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden.Trump himself is locked in legal battle with the committee over the release of White House documents related to the day of the insurrection, when his supporters ransacked the Capitol. ‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreOn Thursday, a federal appeals court in Washington DC handed Trump a temporary victory by blocking the release by the National Archives of hundreds of pages of communication logs, memos and other materials ordered by a lower court days before. The appeals court will listen to arguments later this month on Trump’s claim the documents are protected by executive privilege before making a final decision.Schiff said he believed efforts to delay the inquiry in the courts would not succeed.“The courts themselves have recognised that Donald Trump essentially played our institutions for four years and played rope-a-dope in the courts,” he said.“[They] moved with such expedition to reject Trump’s claims in the district court a week or so ago, now the court of appeals is saying they’re going to have a hearing by the end of the month. Courts don’t generally move that fast and I think it’s a recognition that Donald Trump has relied on justice delayed meaning justice denied. So we and the courts are moving quickly.”TopicsUS Capitol attackSteve BannonUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationRepublicansUS crimenewsReuse this content More

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      Steve Bannon indicted for refusal to comply with Capitol attack subpoena

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      Steve Bannon indicted for refusal to comply with Capitol attack subpoenaFormer Trump adviser indicted by grand jury for contempt of Congress The former top Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been indicted by a grand jury for two counts of contempt of Congress after failing to appear before a congressional committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.The justice department said Bannon, 67, had been indicted on one count for refusing to appear for a deposition and the other for refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena. It wasn’t immediately clear when he would be due in court.Steve Bannon indicted for refusing to comply with Capitol attack subpoena – liveRead moreCNN reported that an arrest warrant for Bannon had already been signed by a judge.The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the indictment reflected the justice department’s steadfast commitment to ensuring it adhered to the rule of law, no matter who is accused of a crime.“Since my first day in office, I have promised justice department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law,” said Garland.Each count carries a between 30 days and a year in jail.The 6 January committee was created in the House of Representatives to investigate the attack, which saw a pro-Trump mob rampage through the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump.Some of the committee’s work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from top Trump administration officials who have refused to comply with subpoenas to testify or turn over documents.Earlier on Friday, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows failed to appear before the committee. He also faces a criminal referral to the justice department for contempt.Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican on the committee, told CNN he hoped the move would send a “chilling message” to other subpoena recipients.“It sends a really important message to future invited witnesses … You cannot ignore Congress,” Kinzinger said.Bannon’s attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsUS CongressUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      House holds Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress

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      House of RepresentativesHouse holds Trump ally Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of CongressContempt citation for Bannon approved by 229 votes to 202Strategist refused to comply with Capitol attack subpoena Hugo Lowell in WashingtonThu 21 Oct 2021 16.32 EDTLast modified on Thu 21 Oct 2021 17.05 EDTThe House voted on Thursday to hold Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress, over his refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack.House votes to hold Bannon in contempt for defying Capitol attack subpoena – liveRead moreThe approval of the contempt citation, by 229 votes to 202 against, escalates the select committee’s efforts to punish Bannon for his non-compliance as they intensify their inquiry into whether then-president Trump helped plan or had advance knowledge of the insurrection.The House select committee chair, Bennie Thompson, the Democratic congressman from Mississippi, said the authorization of the criminal referral against Bannon signalled their determination to deploy their most aggressive measures to take action both against Bannon and any other Trump aides who might ultimately defy subpoenas.“We need to make it clear that no person is above the law, we need to take a stand for the committee’s investigation, and for the integrity of this body,” Thompson said on the House floor.“What sort of precedent would it set for the House of Representatives if we allow a witness to ignore us, flat out, without facing any kind of consequences? What message would it send to other witnesses in our investigation? I’m not willing to find out,” he added.The move to request the justice department to prosecute Trump’s former chief strategist also marks a stinging personal rebuke to Bannon, and opens a new legal front in the select committee’s efforts to pursue information from inside the White House and Trump circles before 6 January.Members on the select committee recommended that the House hold Bannon in criminal contempt after they unanimously rejected the notion that Trump’s former chief strategist could claim absolute immunity from congressional oversight on grounds of executive privilege.The select committee had issued subpoenas last month to Bannon and top Trump administration officials – including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his deputy Dan Scavino, and former defense department aide Kash Patel – under the threat of prosecution.But directed by Trump and his attorney to defy the orders, Bannon ignored his subpoena in its entirety, infuriating the select committee that then moved immediately to vote to recommend that the House find him in contempt of Congress.The referral now heads to the justice department, where the attorney general, Merrick Garland, the US attorney for the District of Columbia and the Office of Legal Counsel are required by law to weigh a prosecution and present the matter before a grand jury.Should the justice department secure a conviction against Bannon, the consequences could mean up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – though it would still not force his compliance and pursuing the misdemeanor charge could take years.The select committee views Bannon’s testimony as crucial to their investigation, since he was in constant contact with Trump in the days and weeks leading up to the Capitol attack.Bannon was one of the key architects – alongside Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and lawyer John Eastman – of the plan to stop the certification of Joe Biden election’s win and attempt the extraordinary move of returning Trump to the Oval Office, according to a source familiar with the matter.That meant Bannon was involved in meetings with the Trump campaign – and potentially even Trump himself – at the Trump International hotel and the Willard hotel in Washington the night before the Capitol attack.Bannon also appeared to predict the Capitol attack itself, saying on his War Room podcast the day before the insurrection that left five dead and 140 injured, including dozens of police officers, and lawmakers and staff in fear for their lives: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”In opening remarks before the vote to recommend Bannon’s prosecution, the Republican vice-chair of the select committee, Liz Cheney, suggested the reason for his non-compliance might be because he was fearful of compromising Trump.“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,” Cheney said.But despite the high stakes, Bannon informed the select committee he would not cooperate with his 23 September subpoena, and claimed the materials and testimony requested by the panel were protected by executive privilege and could not be turned over to Congress.The select committee rejected that argument on Tuesday.Bannon’s legal argument also faces a steep uphill struggle, 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.In the contempt report for Bannon, the select committee noted that they had requested documents and testimony regarding his contacts with members of Congress and the Trump campaign, which could not conceivably be covered by a White House secrecy protection.The contempt report noted that even if the select committee accepted his executive privilege claim, it would still not have allowed him to ignore the subpoena since the protection exists for White House officials – and Bannon was fired by Trump in 2017.TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsSteve BannonDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS CongressnewsReuse this content More