A federal appeals court confirmed this Friday the sentence imposed on Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s advisor and ideologist of the national-populist international, for defying a subpoena from the House Committee of Representatives that investigated the attack on the Capitol on September 6. January 2021. The decision brings closer the possibility of the Republican strategist entering prison to serve the four-month prison sentence handed down in 2022 by District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury found him guilty of two counts of contempt of court. Congress.
Nichols had decided to postpone the entry into force of his sentence against Bannon, while the defendant appealed that sentence, taking into consideration the slippery legal terrain and the privileges that accrue to those who perform jobs as White House advisers. Bannon was in Trump’s early days as president of the United States.
It was that “executive privilege” that Bannon invoked to not comply with the subpoena. The commission that investigated the assault that day in January, on which the peaceful transition of presidential power to Joe Biden was to take place, let the populist ideologue know that the events on which they wanted to shed light happened long after the brief time in office. the administration. During the trial, the prosecution considered that Bannon “followed a strategy of bad faith and defiance and contempt.” [hacia la comisión]”.
The decision to confirm the conviction was made this Friday by the three judges who make up the appeals court, based in Washington. They considered that “none of Bannon’s arguments have merit.” “For this reason, we reaffirm our sorrow,” based on reasons, say the three justices, one of whom was appointed during Trump’s time, “which have been explained repeatedly by the Supreme Court and by this same judicial body.” “The opposite,” they write in the 20-page argument, “would undermine the investigative power of Congress.” Similar arguments served to send another Trump White House collaborator, Pete Navarro, to jail last March.
The nine members (seven Democrats and two Republicans) of the January 6 committee called Bannon to testify in September 2021. Not only did he not agree to do so, but he also did not provide the documents requested. The sentence included a fine of $6,500.
In reading his ruling, Judge Nichols said Bannon had shown “no remorse for his actions.” He demonstrated that defiant attitude in the days when the trial took place in Washington, which he tried to turn into a media circus.
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For now, this conviction is the most tangible effect of the 18 months of the commission’s investigation on January 6, during which a thousand people were interviewed and a million documents were reviewed. When that work concluded, its nine members recommended that Trump, whom they considered guilty of “a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” not be allowed to run again, and called for him to be prosecuted for four crimes, the of insurrection included.
It was always known that these conclusions would not be binding, but when they issued their report at the end of 2022 it was not at all clear that the former president would today be the Republican candidate for the next November elections, some of whose polls show him as the winner. The investigative work carried out by the committee has served, however, to build the case against Trump for his connection with January 6, which is pending in a court in Washington, a process that is pending for the Supreme Court to decide on whether or not, in the last months of his presidency, he was granted total immunity for the performance of his office.
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