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      Roger Stone and Alex Jones among five to receive Capitol attack subpoenas

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      Roger Stone and Alex Jones among five to receive Capitol attack subpoenasHouse select committee expands investigation into planning and financing of rally that preceded 6 January insurrection The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday issued new subpoenas to five political operatives associated with Donald Trump, including Roger Stone and the far-right media star Alex Jones, as the panel deepens its inquiry into the “Save America” rally that preceded the 6 January insurrection. Trump’s allies think they can defy the Capitol attack panel. History suggests otherwise | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreThe subpoenas demanding documents and testimony expand the select committee’s inquiry focused on the planning and financing of the rally at the Ellipse, by targeting operatives who appear to have had contacts with the Trump White House.House investigators issued subpoenas to the veteran operatives Stone and Jones, Trump’s spokesperson Taylor Budowich, and the pro-Trump activists Dustin Stockton and his wife, Jennifer Lawrence.The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said the subpoenas aimed to uncover “who organized, planned, paid for, and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress”.Thompson said in the subpoena letter to Stone that he was being subpoenaed to explain why he had been invited to lead the march to the Capitol on 6 January from the rally at the Ellipse, but curiously did not ultimately attend the rally or go near the Capitol.The chairman also suggested that House investigators were interested in Stone’s connection to the Oath Keepers, the militia group he used as his private security detail before several members stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Stone was also at a “command center” at the Willard hotel in Washington DC on 5 January, where Trump lieutenants strategized late into the night about how to subvert the results of the 2020 election at the joint session of Congress.In the subpoena letter for Jones, the host of the far-right network InfoWars, Thompson raised the fact that he too did not lead the march from the rally from the Ellipse despite being invited to do so, in a potential indication he knew in advance about the Capitol attack.The select committee also subpoenaed Budowich, a Trump spokesperson who sought to set up a social media and advertising campaign to promote attendance at the rally, according to the subpoena letter.Thompson said, citing information on file with the select committee, that Budowich’s efforts extended to directing about $200,000 to rally organizers from unnamed donors “that was not disclosed to the organization to pay for the advertising campaign”.The new detail about Budowich’s involvement in the financing of the rally could suggest that the select committee is aware of intimate connections between organizers and the Trump campaign, and that the level of coordination was deeper than previously known.Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a member of the select committee, suggested on Saturday that the panel had uncovered new information pertaining to the Capitol attack, telling CNN they had interviewed more than 200 people.The select committee also subpoenaed Stockton and Lawrence, pro-Trump activists who have ties to the ex-president’s former adviser Steve Bannon and allegedly helped organize the rally, according to their subpoena letters.The new subpoenas came after counsel for the select committee said on Monday that allowing Donald Trump to block House investigators from accessing White House records held by the National Archives would threaten the safety of the 2022 and 2024 elections.In court filings with the DC circuit of the US court of appeals, the select committee said the integrity of future elections would be in jeopardy if they were unable to learn everything they could about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“The select committee’s task to study and suggest legislation to ensure that January 6 is not repeated, and that our nation’s democracy is protected from future attacks, is urgent,” the House counsel Douglas Letter argued on behalf of the panel.Trump sued last month to stop the select committee from receiving hundreds of pages of White House records from the National Archives, including memos by the former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin, over executive privilege claims.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesRoger StonenewsReuse this content More

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      Two quit Fox News over Tucker Carlson’s Capitol attack series

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      Two quit Fox News over Tucker Carlson’s Capitol attack seriesCommentators Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg cite Fox Nation documentary Patriot Purge in stinging open letter Two Fox News contributors have quit the network over Tucker Carlson’s Patriot Purge, a documentary about the deadly Capitol attack.Kayleigh McEnany’s book claims don’t stand up to assurances that she didn’t lieRead moreIn an open letter, Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg said: “Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.“A case in point: Patriot Purge, a three-part series hosted by Tucker Carlson.”As Hayes and Goldberg noted on the Dispatch, an outlet they founded in 2019, Patriot Purge showed on the Fox Nation streaming service but was promoted on Fox News.The three-part series recycles conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack, in which supporters of Donald Trump attacked Congress on 6 January in an attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.Hayes and Goldberg, formerly writers with the Weekly Standard and the National Review, said the series was “presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery and damning omissions.”Goldberg told the New York Times he and Hayes had stayed on at Fox News in the hope it would recover independence from Trump.But as goes the Republican party, so goes Fox News. In their resignation letter, Hayes and Goldberg wrote: “Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend.”Goldberg told the Times the Carlson documentary was “a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction.“Now, righting the ship is an academic question. The Patriot Purge thing meant: OK, we hit the iceberg now, and I can’t do the rationalisations any more.”Fox News did not comment. The Times said a spokeswoman “sent data showing that [political] independents” watch the network.NPR cited five sources “with direct knowledge” as saying Hayes and Goldberg’s resignations “reflect larger tumult within Fox News over Carlson’s series … and his increasingly strident stances”. The same report named Bret Baier and Chris Wallace as senior anchors whose objections “rose to Lachlan Murdoch”, the chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation.Murdoch did not comment. Last week his father, Rupert Murdoch, said it was “crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in … debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”Outcry after Kyle Rittenhouse sits down with Tucker Carlson for Fox News interviewRead moreBut Carlson dominates primetime. He told the Times the resignations of Hayes and Goldberg were “great news” and said: “Our viewers will be grateful.”Carlson is due on Monday to broadcast an interview with Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was found not guilty on all counts on Friday, in his trial for shooting dead two men and wounding another during protests for racial justice in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.Carlson has also made a documentary with Rittenhouse, an enterprise Rittenhouse’s lawyer has said he opposed.Hayes told the Times he had been disturbed when a man at a recent event staged by Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump group, asked: “When do we get to use the guns?”“That’s a scary moment,” Hayes said. “And I think we’d do well to have people who at the very least are not putting stuff out that would encourage that kind of thing.”TopicsFox NewsUS television industryUS politicsRepublicansUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s allies think they can defy the Capitol attack panel. History suggests otherwise | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Trump’s allies think they can defy the Capitol attack panel. History suggests otherwiseSidney BlumenthalIn the infancy of the Confederacy, Congress formed a committee to investigate – and everyone cooperated Donald Trump’s extraordinary claim of executive privilege as a former president to prevent any of his aides and agents from testifying before the House select committee to investigate the 6 January attack on the US Capitol rests on the premise that the privilege resides with a president even after he leaves office. Trump is asserting that the position of former president is a recognized constitutional office with permanent rights and privileges. President Joe Biden, the incumbent president who rightfully holds executive privilege, has waived that privilege from covering the relevant documents and potential witnesses Trump wishes to keep secret and silent.Want to make Jim Jordan sing about the Capitol attack? Ask Jefferson Davis | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreStanding behind Trump’s supposed shield, a number of those subpoenaed by the committee refuse to cooperate with the investigation. Stephen Bannon, a Trump White House aide early in his term but not during the insurrection, has been cited for criminal contempt and indicted by the Department of Justice. Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, who was at the center of the plot, and Jeffrey Clark, the former assistant attorney general, who plotted to have states overturn lawful election results on baseless theories of fraud, have refused to cooperate on the grounds of an unspecified legal executive privilege.The US court of appeals for the DC circuit has granted Trump a temporary administrative injunction against the National Archives from turning over certain subpoenaed documents to the committee, in order to hear full arguments in the case on 30 November. In a prior ruling, however, Judge Tanya S Chutkan stated, “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”Trump’s claim of executive privilege is based on his claim that as a former president he retains a “constitutional and statutory right” to protect his “records and communications” under any and all circumstances. His lawyer, in his emergency appeal to stay the disclosure, denies that the House committee has any “legislative purpose” and is merely “a rival political branch” – a rival apparently to a former president, who is implicitly another “political branch” even though he is no longer in office. President Biden, the appeal alleges, is simply a member of “rival political party”, acting on naked partisanship. Release of Trump’s communications in question, far from serving any legitimate government purpose, is designed only to “meet a political objective”.The attempted coup to overthrow a democratic election seems so astonishing and novel that the filings in the case have failed to come up with any remotely similar situation. But there is a precedent as exact and specific as it could be – and it directly contradicts Trump’s contentions.In fact, there was a House select committee empaneled to investigate an insurrection. That committee requested the papers of the president, subpoenaed the testimony of his cabinet secretaries and members of his administration, and called for the appearance of senior military officers. No one resisted. No one invoked executive privilege. There were no legal challenges, not a single one. Everyone fully cooperated. The president handed over his records and communications, the cabinet secretaries testified under oath, and the top general forthrightly answered questions.That insurrection began with the election of Abraham Lincoln on 6 November 1860. In a planned sequence, the federal courthouse, custom house and post offices in South Carolina were seized, and secession of the state from the Union proclaimed. President James Buchanan issued a statement declaring that while secession was illegal he had no constitutional power to prevent it.Buchanan’s passivity permitted the insurrection to advance. The small garrison of US troops stationed in Charleston was menaced by local militia. Major Robert Anderson removed his troops to the safety of Fort Sumter, located on an island in Charleston Harbor. The other forts and the Charleston arsenal were at once overrun. Soon, six other states in the lower south held elections of delegates to secession conventions, which were marked by the coercion of armed militias. To whip up the secession movement, the southern governors coordinated armed attacks from 3 January to 14 January 1861 on eight federal forts and arsenals, capturing 75,000 weapons.Washington, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia, where secessionist militias had been organized, was awash in rumors of armed assaults, including on the Capitol, and of Lincoln’s assassination to prevent his inauguration. (Indeed, there would be an assassination attempt on Lincoln’s life as he passed through Baltimore in February.) On the advice of Gen Winfield Scott, Buchanan reluctantly summoned several hundred troops to guard the capital to assure the peaceful transfer of power. The Capitol itself became a veritable army base.On 9 January 1861, in the midst of the seizure of federal forts, the House created a select committee to investigate the rolling coup that was under way. The committee demanded and received the internal correspondence of the president. It held extensive hearings and examined witnesses, including cabinet members on far-ranging elements of the subversion, from Buchanan’s dealings with the South Carolina secessionists to “the “alleged hostile organization against the government within the District of Columbia” and the “seizure of forts, arsenals, revenue cutters, and other property of the United States”.“The law has been defied, the Constitution thrust aside, and the government itself assaulted,” the committee concluded, and rebuked Buchanan for claiming the president is impotent before an attempt “to overthrow the government”. Rather than being helpless before an insurrection, the committee declared that a president must suppress it. “The Constitution makes no provision for releasing any of its officers or agents from the obligations of the oath it requires them to take.” The committee’s report quoted from the oath of office for the president: “The Executive must take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” And it cited from article 1 on the “Powers of Congress” that “Congress shall have the power” to “execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections …”Less than three weeks after the committee report was released, Lincoln was inaugurated, on 4 March 1861. A month later, on 12 April, with the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter, the insurrection crossed into civil war. By the end of war’s first year, Lincoln said in his annual message to the Congress, “It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government – the rights of the people.” He cautioned against the clear and present danger of tyranny: “Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people. In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.” Lincoln closed, “The struggle of today, is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.”In ruling whether a former president is entitled to the immunity of a king, the DC court of appeals should be informed by the precedent of the House select committee investigating the insurrection that led to the civil war, its clarion call for the president and other elected officials to uphold their constitutional responsibility to act decisively against the destruction of democracy, and the words and example of Lincoln.
      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth
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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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      US Capitol rioter who wore horned headdress sentenced to 41 months

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      US Capitol rioter who wore horned headdress sentenced to 41 monthsJacob Chansley, who wore a horned helmet and a fur hat, took part in the deadly attack by Trump followers A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the US Capitol rioter nicknamed the “QAnon shaman” for his horned headdress to 41 months in prison for his role in the deadly 6 January attack by former President Donald Trump’s followers.Prosecutors had asked US district judge Royce Lamberth to impose a longer 51-month sentence on Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty in September to obstructing an official proceeding when he and thousands of others stormed the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election.The sentence matches one imposed by a judge on a former mixed martial artist filmed punching a police officer, who was sentenced last week to 41 months in prison.Lamberth said he believed Chansley, who made a lengthy speech before he was sentenced, had done a lot to convince the court he is “on the right track”.Chansley’s attorneys asked the judge for a sentence of time served for their client, who has been detained since his January arrest. He appeared in court in a dark green prison jumpsuit, with a beard and shaved head.While in detention, Chansley was diagnosed by prison officials with transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. When he entered his guilty plea, Chansley said he was disappointed Trump had not pardoned him.Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and acquitted by the Senate on a charge of inciting the 6 January riot for a fiery speech that preceded it, in which he told his followers to “fight like hell”.Four people died in the violence. A Capitol police officer who had been attacked by protesters died the day after the riot and four police officers who took part in the defense of the Capitol later took their own lives. About 140 police officers were injured.Defense lawyer Albert Watkins said the US Navy in 2006 had found Chansley suffered from personality disorder but nonetheless declared him “fit for duty”. TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claims

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      Mnuchin and Pompeo discussed removing Trump after Capitol attack, book claimsTwo cabinet members considered invoking the 25th amendment, new book by the ABC White House correspondent says Donald Trump’s secretary of state and treasury secretary discussed removing him from power after the deadly Capitol attack by invoking the 25th amendment, according to a new book.‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreThe amendment, added to the constitution after the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, provides for the removal of an incapacitated president, potentially on grounds of mental as well as physical fitness. It has never been used.According to Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, by the ABC Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, talked to other cabinet members about using the amendment on the night of 6 January, the day of the attack, and the following day.Removing Trump via the amendment would have required a majority vote in the cabinet. Karl reports that Mnuchin spoke to Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state and an avowed loyalist.Mnuchin did not comment for Karl’s book, which is published on Tuesday. Karl writes that Pompeo responded only after Karl told Trump the former secretary of state had not done so.“Pompeo through a spokesman denied there have ever been conversations around invoking the 25th amendment,” Karl writes. “The spokesman declined to put his name to the statement.”Karl also reports that Pompeo asked for a legal analysis of the process for invoking the 25th amendment.“The analysis determined that it would take too much time,” Karl writes, “considering that Trump only had 14 days left in office and any attempt to forcefully remove him would be subject to legal challenge.”Karl says Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, and Elaine Chao, transportation, might have supported invoking the 25th amendment but both resigned after the Capitol attack.Chao is married to the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell – who broke with Trump over the Capitol riot.Karl also says that “while the discussions did happen, the idea that Trump’s cabinet would vote to remove him was, in fact, ludicrous”.Pompeo is among Republicans jostling for position ahead of the 2024 presidential primary but that is a process which demands demonstrations of fealty to Trump, who continues to dominate the party in part by toying with another White House run.Trump is free to do so because he was acquitted at his second Senate impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the Capitol insurrection.At a rally near the White House on 6 January, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, by blocking certification of electoral college results. Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, eventually declined to weaponise his role overseeing the vote count, as Trump demanded he should.Karl reports that in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, around which five people died, “at least two cabinet secretaries” asked Pence, who had been holed up at the Capitol as rioters chanted for his hanging, to convene a cabinet meeting.Betrayal review: Trump’s final days and a threat not yet extinguishedRead morePence did not do so, Karl writes, adding that there is no evidence to suggest Pence was involved in 25th amendment discussions.On 7 January, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, formally asked Pence to invoke the 25th amendment. Pence waited five days, then refused.Pence is also a potential candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024.TopicsDonald TrumpMike PompeoTrump administrationUS politicsMike PenceUS Capitol attacknewsReuse 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’

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      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