Haro on the obstruction. By a unanimous vote, the US commission of inquiry into the January 6 insurgency called Tuesday evening for criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress against the sulphurous adviser to the populists Steve Bannon. This close friend of Donald Trump refused to appear before parliamentarians last week to testify on this unprecedented attack on democracy in the United States.
By this gesture, the commission has decided to send a clear message to the leading players in this insurgency, while the former US president has been trying for several days to hinder the work of elected officials. He tries to influence several former members of his close guard so that they do not testify there and seeks to block access to documents likely to compromise him.
“It is essential that we get the facts and full testimony from Mr. Bannon on the January 6 violence and its causes,” said Democratic MP Bennie Thompson, who chairs the special committee. “Mr. Bannon will comply with our investigation or he will bear the consequences. […] We will not allow anyone to stand in the way of the committee as we work to establish the facts. The stakes are too high. “
On the advice of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Steve Bannon defied the order to appear before the commission of inquiry last Thursday, citing the executive branch’s right not to disclose secret information to the legislature. However, according to the Democrats, this right only applies to the president in office and cannot be claimed by Steve Bannon who, at the time of the insurgency, was only a simple citizen who did not hold any office. official within the White House.
The contempt resolution adopted by the committee of inquiry must be approved by the entire House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, in a vote scheduled for Thursday. The Justice Department will then decide whether to indict Steve Bannon. The populist’s ex-adviser faces in theory up to one year in prison and $ 100,000 in fines.
Bannon is considered a key witness by the commission due to his direct communications with the ex-president on the day of the insurgency, just like in the days before. According to parliamentarians, he participated in the public relations campaign to ignite the passions of supporters of Donald Trump on January 6 in order to prevent the certification of the vote in favor of Joe Biden and to keep the billionaire in office despite the November 2020 presidential election results.
In a podcast, Bannon had also warned on January 5 that “hell [allait] lash out on the Capitol ”.
Seven people lost their lives and 140 others were injured in the riots driven by the fallacious idea that Democrats had appropriated power by manipulating the electoral process. The assertion is still maintained by a large number of elected Republicans, despite dozens of investigations never having succeeded in demonstrating this alleged fraud.
To date, nearly 700 of these rioters have been arrested and taken to U.S. courts. Dozens were sentenced for participating in the attack.
The vote held by the commission of inquiry comes the day after the launch of legal proceedings by Donald Trump to prevent elected officials from accessing archival documents related to this day and coming from the White House while he occupied the Oval Office.
The Biden government approved their release, believing that the violent attack on the Capitol over nine months ago was of such extraordinary circumstance as to warrant lifting the protection that usually applies to House communications. White. Trump’s lawyers are trying to block this decision, which could shed light on the former president’s real involvement in this attack on the American legislature, and argue that it is a “fishing campaign” “vexatious and illegal ”from the Democrats.
Republican Liz Cheney, representing Wyoming, one of two members of Donald Trump’s party to sit on this commission of inquiry, indicated that the determination of Steve Bannon and the former president to obstruct the work of parliamentarians suggests that both were “personally involved in the planning and execution of the January 6 riot”. This critical voice of the former reality TV star hammered home his intentions: that will not prevent us from “getting to the bottom of things”.
The commission of inquiry has subpoenaed nearly a dozen witnesses, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House and Pentagon aide Kashyap Patel, who on legal advice from the former president, also seeks to avoid appearing before elected officials. The two men are said to be negotiating with the commission to avoid contempt charges.