Less than a day after he was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas, Steve Bannon warned Friday that a future Republican-controlled Congress would launch a “real January 6 committee” to expose the Capitol Riot and the Democratic Party’s alleged manipulations of it.
“We have to have a real January 6 committee, including to get to the staffers now and see about the lies and misrepresentations they put on national television to defame people,” Bannon said during an appearance on Tucker Carlson tonight. “I would tell the January 6 staff right now, ‘preserve your documents.’ Because there’s going to be a real committee and this is going to be backed by Republican grassroots voters and MAGA saying, ‘we want to get to the bottom of this for the good of the nation.'”
The former chief strategist for President Trump called on voters to defeat in the next election cycle Republicans on the panel such as Representative Liz Cheney, a longtime staunch opponent of Trump who has been diligently litigating the riot.
“Republicans have been controlled opposition. That’s what has to change. This November, we have to deliver a crushing blow to this Democratic Party apparatus. But then, we have to really govern, and I mean govern on offense,” Bannon implored viewers.
If the GOP reclaims its congressional majority in the 2022 midterms, “every committee should be an oversight committee” and the Biden administration will be heavily probed and held accountable, Bannon vowed.
“Republicans have to have the stones to put on a real hearing…It’s outrageous what the public doesn’t know about this. For the good of the system this has to happen,” he said. “We have to go after the Biden administration, which is illegitimate.”
After only three days of trial, Bannon was found guilty Friday of two counts of contempt of Congress for ignoring January 6 committee subpoenas, which demanded that he provide testimony and produce documents relevant to his activities around the time of the mob’s storming of the Capitol. Bannon, who was no longer a government official at the time of the Capitol riot, having been dismissed by Trump early into the administration, had originally refused to comply with the requests on the grounds that Trump had claimed executive privilege.
However, earlier this month, Bannon agreed to cooperate with the January 6 committee in the form of a public hearing after receiving a letter from Trump waiving his executive privilege, according to his email obtained by the Guardian.
During the interview with Carlson, Bannon acknowledged and seemed unfazed by the fact that he could be imprisoned for his actions. “I support Trump and the Constitution and I’m not backing off one inch. If I go to jail so be it,” he said.
Bannon now enters a long appeals process, in which his attorneys are likely to argue that he was selectively prosecuted and that he was subjected to prejudicial publicity because the trial coincided with the committee’s nationally televised hearings, our Andrew McCarthy noted.
“I’m very confident that we’re 100 percent right on the law but I’m going to fight this all the way. And this is not the only battle we’re fighting. They’re coming at us on every aspect,” Bannon told Carlson. “They’re trying to shut you down, they’re trying to throw off Fox anchors. They’re coming for everybody. This is an ideological war and we cannot lose.”