Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist and Donald Trump ally facing criminal charges after months of defying a congressional subpoena over the unrest on Capitol Hill, told the House committee investigating the attack that he is now willing. to testify.
Bannon’s twist was aired Saturday night in a letter from his lawyer, lawmakers said, as the committee prepares to air some of its most startling revelations this week against Trump in what could be his final series of hearings.
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“I hope we hear from him and there are a lot of questions that we have for him,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. She and other members of the committee said in television interviews Sunday that they intend Bannon to appear for a private interview, which is usually done in an affidavit.
Bannon had been one of Trump’s highest-profile allies in refusing to testify before the committee, leading to two criminal contempt of Congress charges last year for resisting the committee’s subpoena. He has argued that his testimony is protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. The committee maintains that such a claim is dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017, and thus Bannon was a private citizen when consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riots. .
Still, in recent days, as the former president grew frustrated with what he denounced as a one-sided filing by the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans, Trump said he would give up that claim of privilege, according to a letter Saturday to the attorney. of Bannon.
“If you come to an agreement on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive you executive privilege, allowing you to come in and testify truthfully and fairly, per the request of the unselected committee of political thugs and thugs,” Trump wrote.
The committee’s Thursday night hearing will examine the more than three-hour stretch when Trump failed to act as a crowd of supporters stormed the Capitol. It will be the first primetime audience since the June 9 debut that was watched by 20 million people.
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A hearing on Tuesday will focus on the plotting and planning of the insurrection by white nationalist groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, and will also highlight testimony taken Friday from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
It comes after surprise testimony last month by former Trump White House adviser Cassidy Hutchinson provided the most compelling evidence yet that Trump could be linked to a federal crime. Since then, the committee has seen an influx of new information and insider tips.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., suggested that Bannon “changed his mind, and after presumably seeing all these people show up, including Cassidy Hutchinson, he decided he wants to get in, and if he wants in, I’m sure the committee would be very interested in hearing from him.”
Bannon’s trial on the two criminal charges is July 18. A hearing in his case is scheduled for Monday in federal court in Washington. Bannon has been looking for a delay in his trial to at least drop.
It’s unclear how cooperative Bannon intends to be. He has expressed his preference to appear before the committee in a public hearing. The committee makes it clear that she must first sit down for a private interview, usually in an affidavit. You may also choose to appear and then refuse to answer questions, citing your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“The way we’ve treated all the witnesses is the same, they come in, they talk to the committee there,” Raskin said. “If they are going to take a statement, they do it under oath. It is recorded on video. It’s recorded, and then we take it from there.”
The committee says it wants to hear from Bannon because “he had specific knowledge about the events planned for January 6 before they occurred.” He cited as an example the comments he made on his podcast the day before the riot.
“It’s not going to happen the way you think it’s going to happen. Well, it’s going to be extraordinarily different. All I can say is buckle up,” Bannon said on that podcast. “All hell will break loose tomorrow. … A lot of people said, ‘Man, if I was in a revolution, I’d be in Washington.’ Well, this is your moment in history.
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House investigators have been delving into the evidence collected so far about the role extremist groups played in the deadly insurrection and what Trump was doing as the violence raged across the street from the White House.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, who will lead Thursday’s hearing with Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Virginia, described the upcoming testimony as key to providing an extensive timeline of what Trump did and didn’t do in those critical hours in the late on January 6, 2021. That includes Trump’s tweet criticizing Vice President Mike Pence for a lack of “courage” as angry protesters outside the Capitol were heard shouting “Hang Mike Pence” for not challenging the election victory of Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
“We want to show the American people what the president was doing during that time,” Kinzinger said Sunday. “The rest of the country knew there was an insurrection. The president obviously had to have known there was an insurrection. So where was he? What was he doing? It is a very important audience. Pay attention. Because I think it goes to the heart of what a leader’s oath is.”
Tuesday’s hearing will explore efforts to rally the crowd on the National Mall and then stage the march down Pennsylvania Avenue, where some rioters, armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged the Capitol, quickly outpacing the overwhelmed force. police. More than 100 police officers were injured, many beaten, bloodied and bruised that day.
It will also highlight a December 18, 2020, meeting at the White House in which former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and others floated the idea of seizing voting machines and invoking emergency national security powers, to the heated objection of several White House lawyers who argued that Trump needed to accept defeat, according to Raskin, who will preside over Tuesday’s hearing.
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“We are going to use Mr. Cipollone’s testimony a lot,” he said. “He was aware of every major move, I think, that Donald Trump was making to try to unseat the 2020 election and essentially take the presidency.”
Kinzinger spoke on ABC’s “This Week,” Lofgren was on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Raskin appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Rehoboth Beach, Del., contributed to this report.
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