Former Trump aide’s lawyers plan a slew of legal challenges to unusual criminal case for defying House subpoena.
President Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon will go to trial July 18 on criminal charges that he defied a subpoena from the House committee exploring the causes of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election, a judge ordered Tuesday.
Judge Carl Nichols set the mid-summer schedule after Bannon’s lawyers and Justice Department attorneys wrangled over how quickly the contempt of Congress case should move.
Prosecutors suggested starting the trial in April, while the defense had proposed October.
Nichols, a Trump appointee, said a slew of pretrial motions Bannon’s defense intends to file are no reason to put off a trial for almost a year.
“It seems to me, though … that we don’t need ten months to do this,” the judge said during an hourlong hearing held by videoconference.
However, Nichols also sounded skeptical about the prosecution’s motives for pressing for a trial by April. He called that approach “somewhat anomalous” with the deliberate pace of hundreds of criminal cases the Justice Department has brought against individuals accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt.
“Essentially, none of those cases have gone to trial,” said Nichols. “They’re languishing a little but … in this case, which is a misdemeanor and a non-detained defendant, the government wants to go at light speed.”
Nichols also suggested he doesn’t view the case as particularly urgent due to the House panel’s efforts to quickly carry out its work. He noted that the prosecution of Bannon isn’t, at this point, a mechanism to get him to testify or turn over the subpoenaed documents.
“This is not a case through which the committee could get information,” the judge declared.
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Steve Bannon will go to trial July 18 on criminal charges that he defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee https://t.co/U6SGvx7tw5
— POLITICO (@politico) December 7, 2021
Great. Now we have a Trumpy judge further frustrating prosecution of this matter.
This whole commission will go nowhere just like the 2 impeachments. No one will be prosecuted. Should Republicans take complete control of both houses of congress, the commission will be disbanded and it will all be swept under the rug.
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