Trump world is caving in on itself now
The January 6th Committee will let us know soon enough whether Steve Bannon’s last ditch offer to testify is a legitimate offer backed up by the surrender of supporting documents, or if Bannon is merely pretending he’s willing to testify in order to try to muddy the waters before his criminal trial. But either way, it’s a sign of just how badly Trump world is now caving in on itself.
Back when the committee got the DOJ to criminally indict Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress, Bannon publicly vowed to use the charges against him to pry open the DOJ’s entire January 6th criminal probe, and get everyone else in Trump world off the hook. But nothing of the sort happened. Bannon got nowhere with this scheme, and now he’s days away from going on trial – where a conviction will send him to prison. And now Bannon has either decided to sell Trump out to try to save himself, or is merely throwing things at the wall out of desperation.
It’s a far cry from the Steve Bannon who spent the past several months insisting on his podcast that he was going to bring a massive imaginary army against the United States government, and that he was going to put various government leaders in prison. It’s not clear if Bannon actually believed such delusional nonsense or if it was all mere performance art to solicit money for his criminal defense fund, but either way, it’s obvious by now that Bannon has no power to pull off anything at all.
Meanwhile, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes – who has been rotting in jail for six months while awaiting trial – is offering to testify to the January 6th Committee, even as the committee is preparing to have Rhodes’ former roommate testify against him. It seems everyone in Trump world is now in a rush to testify, before someone else can testify against them, or before they go on trial, or some other ugly fate.
Even as we watch indicted Trump world people like Bannon and Rhodes make last ditch panic moves, we’re also seeing Donald Trump himself become more frantic and squirmy than ever. And why wouldn’t he? We’re about to see a whole lot more Trump world people looking to testify against Trump himself, some like Cassidy Hutchinson because it’s the right thing, some like Pat Cipollone because the January 6th Committee cleverly boxed them into it, and others who will merely be trying to save their own skins. Really, at this point, it’s all about cornering everyone in Trump world to sell out Donald Trump – and that process now appears to be accelerating.
