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A federal jury on Friday found Steve Bannon—who served as former President Donald Trump's chief strategist—guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
"The subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored," said Matthew M. Graves, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, in a statement. "Mr. Bannon had an obligation to appear before the House select committee to give testimony and provide documents. His refusal to do so was deliberate and now a jury has found that he must pay the consequences."
After two days of hearings and less than three hours of deliberations, the jury unanimously decided Bannon was guilty of refusal to appear for a deposition and refusal to produce documents. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols scheduled his sentencing for October 21.
The Washington Post reports that "each of the two misdemeanor charges is punishable by at least 30 days and up to one year in jail. But such prosecutions are rare, and no one has been incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century, since the red-baiting trials of the Cold War era."
According to CNN:
Bannon had come into the courtroom before the jury reassembled in a relatively buoyant mood. He threw his face mask down on the table as soon as he arrived, then sat on his phone for several minutes, a few times showing his lawyer a message."
Once the jury assembled, and before the verdict was read, he had one hand bracing the table, and glanced at the jurors just a few times, primarily watching the judge. He smiled and smirked after the verdict was read, and then patted his lawyers on back.
Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse that "we may have lost the battle here today, but we're not going to lose the war," and his attorney, Doug Schoen, vowed to appeal the verdict.
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.
Jessica Corbett | Radio Free (2022-07-22T19:37:00+00:00) Steve Bannon Guilty of Contempt of Congress for Defying Jan. 6 Subpoena. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2022/07/22/steve-bannon-guilty-of-contempt-of-congress-for-defying-jan-6-subpoena/
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