The turnaround is spectacular. Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald Trump, has declared himself ready to appear before the special committee of the House of Representatives which is investigating the assault carried out on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by supporters of the former president. American.
The members of the commission said, Sunday, July 10, having learned of this decision by a letter from a lawyer for Steve Bannon who is being prosecuted for having refused for months to testify and to transmit documents to the said commission.
The latter – which has seven Democrats and two Republicans – will meet in particular on Thursday July 14 to examine the period of more than three hours during which Donald Trump did not act while a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol. She is preparing to broadcast certain revelations against the ex-president. Steve Bannon’s testimony would therefore be extremely valuable. “I expect that we will hear from him, and we have many questions to ask him”said Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren.
Until then, the former White House strategist brandished the argument of executive privilege, invoked by Donald Trump, to justify his refusal to cooperate. This privilege, a simple principle not defined by law, protects the confidentiality of exchanges between the president and his relatives.
The End of Executive Privilege
The commission argues that such a defense is dubious because, at the time of the events, Steve Bannon was no longer adviser to the president – position left in 2017 — but host of a hugely popular conspiratorial podcast. According to the commission, Steve Bannon was therefore a private citizen when he advised Donald Trump on the eve of the riot of January 6, 2021.
According to a letter received by Steve Bannon’s lawyer on Saturday, the former Republican president – who constantly denounces the impartiality of the commission of inquiry – said he waived this executive privilege. “If you come to an agreement on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive executive privilege for you, which allows you to testify honestly and fairly, as requested by the unelected commission of thugs and political hackers,” is it written in the letter.
Since the opening of the hearings, the commission of inquiry has heard from a large number of people linked to the attack on the Capitol. On Tuesday, June 28, Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimonyformer assistant to Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff during the last months of his administration, revealed Donald Trump’s explosive role in the riots.
Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin suggested that Steve Bannon “had changed his mind, and after seeing, presumably, all these people coming forward, including Cassidy Hutchinson, decided he wanted to come.”
He could choose not to answer the questions
The commission wants to hear Steve Bannon because he “had precise knowledge of the events predicted for January 6 before they occurred”. She cites as an example comments he had made on his podcast the day before the riot.
“It’s not going to happen the way you think it’s going to happen. OK, this is going to be quite extraordinarily different. All I can say is hold on tight”he said in the program. “Hell is going to break loose tomorrow. (…) So many people said, “Man, if I was in a revolution, I’d be in Washington.” Well, this is your time in history,” he added.
However, the degree of cooperation Steve Bannon will show before the special commission is unknown. He would rather appear in a public hearing before the commission, but the latter specifies that he must first go through a private interview, usually in the context of a deposition under oath. It is possible that the former strategist will choose to appear but refuse to answer questions, citing the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, against self-incrimination.
Our articles on the hearings of the commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol