Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica have a whole new problem
We keep seeing reminders that the U.S. criminal justice system works excruciatingly slowly, but it does often work. For instance, longtime Trump henchman Steve Bannon has been arrested and is awaiting criminal trial. In another example, the FTC is finally ripping apart Trump 2016 campaign co-conspirator Cambridge Analytica. Now those developments have collided.
The FTC is investigating how Cambridge Analytica stole personal data from 50 million Facebook users and then illegally used it to form the basis of the Trump 2016 campaign’s voter targeting strategy. Steve Bannon was one of the key players at Cambridge Analytica during this time, and so the FTC has been trying to force him to testify about it.
Bannon has been trying to delay that testimony, for fear that whatever he says might be used against him during his upcoming criminal trial. But now a judge has ruled that Bannon must testify to the FTC ahead of his criminal trial. In other words, things are about to get even uglier for him.
It’s not clear if Donald Trump will end up pardoning Steve Bannon, as the two have had an up and down relationship. But as this FTC probe shows, Bannon’s lifetime of fraudulent antics goes far beyond the charges he’s currently facing. So there is reason to believe that even if he’s pardoned, he’ll face federal charges that fall outside the pardon, or state charges that can’t be pardoned. Trump’s henchmen all take a fall eventually.
