Steve Bannon’s legal situation just got even uglier for him
Yesterday a federal judge struck down the ‘my lawyer made me do it’ defense that Steve Bannon was planning to use in his upcoming criminal trial for contempt of Congress, leaving him with no defense at all, and ensuring he’s headed for prison if he goes to trial.
This would leave Bannon in the untenable position of being in prison for contempt while trying to fend off the broader federal criminal charges that appear headed his way. We’ve long believed that the text of the Bannon contempt indictment was lifted from a much broader DOJ criminal case being built against Bannon – we just weren’t sure precisely where that broader case against Bannon was coming from.
But now Empty Wheel is making a pretty compelling argument that one of the not yet indicted co-conspirators in the federal criminal case against Tom Barrack is indeed Steve Bannon. This is notable because just two weeks ago, Tom Barrack became suspicious that the DOJ might end up indicting him on additional charges, and tried to get the courts to force the DOJ to reveal whether this is the case.
So now we’ve got Trump money man Tom Barrack signaling that he fears more indictments may be coming in the DOJ’s criminal case against him, even as evidence emerges that Trump operative Steve Bannon is Barrack’s not yet indicted co-conspirator in that case, even as Bannon has begun using court filings in his contempt case to try to find out what else the DOJ may be bringing against him, even as Bannon has just lost his only possible defense in the contempt case against him. There’s a whole lot of something going on here. At this point it may be a matter of which Trump operative flips on Trump world first.
