I watched Steve Bannon’s tirade outside the courtroom today as jury selection in his federal contempt of Congress trial was completed. I was struck by this question: What would happen if you or I thought to thumb our nose at a congressional subpoena?
If it were me, I would be locked up and kept in the cooler until my trial began.
The House 1/6 committee summoned Bannon — a former Donald Trump senior political adviser — to testify before the panel in its quest to find the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. Bannon said, in effect, “f*** you” to the committee. The Department of Justice, acting within its authority, then indicted Bannon on contempt of Congress.
Well, today Bannon challenged the legitimacy of the House committee’s very existence, let alone its legal authority to subpoena him. Then he launched into The Big Lie mantra that “Donald Trump won the 2020 election” and that “Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.”
That is his opinion. Bannon also is full of horse dookey … but that’s just my opinion.
It astounds me beyond measure how these individuals think they can defy what I am certain is a duly and legally constituted congressional committee charged with the task of investigating what most of us believe is a crime against the government.
Yet there is Steve Bannon, a fire-breathing ideologue who spews The Big Lie about vote fraud — which has been thoroughly and roundly discredited — while giving the middle finger to a congressional probe.
I shudder to think what would happen if I were to demonstrate such arrogance.