Federal judge just ensured Steve Bannon is heading for prison – and it could force him to flip on Trump
When the January 6th Committee decided to begin its work by subpoenaing Steve Bannon right off the bat, it appeared intended to send a message. Bannon wasn’t going to testify no matter what, for fear of making it easier for the DOJ to nail him for a variety of crimes. Bannon’s predictable lack of cooperation allowed the committee to refer him for contempt and get the DOJ to indict him, sending a clear signal to other witnesses that failure to testify would result in criminal charges. Sure enough, the likes of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have now given cooperative testimony to the committee, for fear of ending up indicted like Bannon.
Here’s the kicker, though. Bannon seemed to think he had a good shot at beating the contempt charge at trial by arguing that his attorney at the time advised him not to testify. However, a federal judge just ruled that Bannon cannot use this argument at trial. This leaves Bannon with no defense at all, and ensures that he’ll be convicted if he goes to trial.
This leaves Bannon in the lose-lose situation of being sent to prison for up to two years after his contempt trial takes place in July, and then being in prison while trying to fend off the multitude of other federal criminal charges that appear headed his way. It’s not a viable scenario for him.
Bannon has been trying and failing to use his court filings in the contempt case to learn what else the DOJ has lined up against him, meaning he’s already worried about what else the DOJ is going to drop on him. Now he knows he’ll be in prison while he’s attempting to fight off those charges. And since Donald Trump’s pardon of Bannon for the “build the wall” scam doesn’t get Bannon off the hook for anything else that’s coming, Bannon will now have to seriously consider cutting a cooperation deal.
Depending on the severity of the DOJ’s overall criminal case against Bannon, he could potentially get a lenient prison sentence – or even immunity – in exchange for flipping on Donald Trump and everyone else in Trump world. As of today, the odds of Bannon cutting such a deal just went up.
