Steve Bannon agrees to testify – and if he’s playing games it’s about to blow up in his face
Steve Bannon has formally agreed to testify to the January 6th Committee, and the committee is open to hearing what he has to say, according to the New York Times. This has set off elation among those who believe Bannon really will give cooperative testimony against Donald Trump, and panic among those who fear Bannon is merely playing games. But if it’s the latter, it’s not going to help Bannon any.
On the surface at least, we all know why Bannon is doing this. He’s just days away from going on criminal trial for contempt of Congress, and if he’s convicted, he’s going to prison. That’ll leave him unable to use his podcast to keep grifting, and thus make him irrelevant and forgotten, even as he awaits potential additional criminal charges from the DOJ.
So Bannon is obviously trying to avoid prison. The question is whether his strategy is to go ahead and give legitimately useful testimony against Trump to the committee, in the hope the DOJ will drop the contempt charges with the committee’s blessing, or whether Bannon is merely making a bad faith offer in an attempt at sabotaging his trial.
We’ll soon find out. Bannon’s lawyer, who ceased representing him yesterday in the criminal case but is somehow still speaking on his behalf to the media, is telling the NY Times that Bannon wants to testify publicly, not privately. It’s unlikely the committee would roll the dice on letting Bannon speak during a live televised hearing, unless it first gets an opportunity to vet what he’s saying and verify any supporting documents he turns over. So if Bannon insists that his testimony be public, or if he refuses to turn over any documents, then this is just a stunt.
On the other hand, Politico is reporting that Bannon has supposedly indeed decided to turn over subpoenaed documents. If Bannon does start forking over legitimate and relevant documents to the committee, it would point to him actually wanting to legitimately cooperate. Such documents would likely incriminate Bannon in such a manner that he’d be making it easier for the DOJ to charge him on broader January 6th related crimes, so after turning them over he’d more or less have to see his cooperation through.
One key question is why Bannon is agreeing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee, but apparently hasn’t sought a cooperation deal with the DOJ. Without such a deal, Bannon would need to invoke the Fifth Amendment in response to the specific questions that incriminate him. While this would be his legal right, it would do little to convince the committee to tell the DOJ to let Bannon off the contempt hook – unless Bannon also gives cooperative testimony that incriminates Donald Trump on other matters that don’t incriminate Bannon.
If that sounds complicated, it all merely serves to underscore how deeply backed into a corner Steve Bannon is. Throw in the fact that he just convinced Donald Trump to formally waive the imaginary executive privilege that Bannon had been planning to use as his defense at his criminal trial, and the whole thing gets even weirder. The imaginary privilege argument was never going to save Bannon at trial, so why bother having Trump waive that imaginary privilege?
What we’re likely watching is the incoherent flailing of a man who knows he’s cornered, doesn’t see a way out, and is delusionally trying to convince himself that if he throws enough stuff at the wall something will work. The bottom line is that if Bannon is playing games and doesn’t end up giving legitimate cooperation, it’ll probably just increase his odds of conviction for contempt – and if he’s not careful he’ll unwittingly make it easier for the DOJ to nail him on more severe charges. Bannon’s only way to avoid prison at this point would be to fully give up Donald Trump. The only question is whether Bannon has figured that out yet, or if he still delusionally thinks he can BS his way out of this.
Bannon has long been portrayed as some kind of secret evil genius figure who’s three steps ahead of everyone else and always wins. But there’s never really been any evidence to support this narrative. Bannon managed to lose Breitbart, lost the Mercers’ funding, somehow got himself ousted from an “anything goes” Trump White House, got arrested on a boat by Post Office officials, and was the first person in Trump world to get himself indicted in relation to January 6th. Bannon’s one consistent talent is always blowing it. This time around he’ll either legitimately flip on Trump, or he’ll just end up blowing it for himself again and face another bad outcome.
