Jury convicts Bannon of contempt of Congress

Source: The Hill | July 22, 2022 | Harper Neidig

A federal jury on Friday convicted Steve Bannon of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The 68-year-old political strategist, who served as former President Trump’s campaign CEO and White House adviser, faces a minimum sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail.

The jury took less than three hours to reach a verdict on the two misdemeanor counts. They began deliberating on Friday after hearing testimony from just two witnesses over the course of a week.

Bannon’s lawyers chose not to present their own case, offering no defense witnesses. Evan Corcoran, one of Bannon’s attorneys, said in his closing argument Friday that there was plenty of reasonable doubt concerning his client’s guilt.

“We didn’t feel the need to put on a defense,” Corcoran told the jury.

Prosecutors had argued the case presented a straightforward question of whether Bannon met the legal obligations laid out for him in the subpoena last year.

“This case is not complicated but it is important,” Molly Gaston, an assistant U.S. Attorney, said in her closing argument Friday. “When it came down to it, he did not want to recognize Congress’s authority or play by the government’s rules.”

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