WASHINGTON (AP) – The trial in contempt of Congress of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon will be extended to a second day after lawyers worked for a lengthy Monday session trying to select a jury with no preconceived notions. Bannon faces criminal charges after refusing for months to cooperate with the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Bannon, an unofficial adviser to President Donald Trump at the time of the Capitol attack, is accused in federal court of defying a Jan. 6 committee summons that called for his records and testimony. He was charged in November with two counts of criminal contempt in Congress, a month after the Justice Department received a referral from Congress. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days in jail and up to one year behind bars.
Monday’s session before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols focused entirely on jury selection in a slow process known as voir dire. By the end of the day, 22 possible jurors had been identified. The trial will resume on Tuesday morning when Bannon’s lawyers and the government reduce the list to 14, with 12 jurors and two alternates.
Much of Monday’s questioning of potential jurors by Bannon’s attorney, Evan Corcoran, focused on how much broad coverage the Jan. 6 hearings have seen and whether they have views on the committee and its work.
In one case, a possible jury told Nichols that staying impartial would be “a challenge” for him, as “I think (Bannon) is guilty.”
This admission, in addition to disqualifying the possible jury, led to an additional interrogation of other people who had sat next to the man to determine the extent to which he had shared his opinion.
The high profile and divisive nature of the case hung up during Monday’s session, with Corcoran trying to block jurors expressing strong opinions about Bannon or Trump, or having some sort of personal connection to Jan. 6 or Chapters.
At one point, Judge Nichols agreed to disqualify a woman whose mother is an employee of Florida Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel. In another case, Corcoran successfully argued to disqualify a man who said the Jan. 6 committee’s work was “important” and was closely following its evolution.
“He comes in with a state of mind where he’s very focused on Jan. 6,” Corcoran said. “I just don’t think it can be fair.”
Bannon attended the entire session, but never spoke.
The trial has been an intense activity in the case since July 9. More than a week ago, the former White House strategist notified the committee that he is now ready to testify. His former lawyer, Robert Costello, said the change was because Trump had waived his executive privilege claim to prevent testimony.
Bannon, 68, had been one of the most prominent of Trump’s allies who refused to testify before the committee. He had argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim for executive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold confidential information from the courts and the legislature.
Trump has repeatedly claimed the privilege of the executive, even though he is a former president, not the current one, to try to block the testimony of witnesses and the publication of White House documents. The Supreme Court ruled in January against Trump’s efforts to prevent the National Archives from working with the committee after a lower court judge – Ketanji Brown Jackson, now on the Supreme Court – noted, in part, “presidents are not kings.”
The committee has also noted that Trump fired Bannon from the White House in 2017, and therefore Bannon was a private citizen when he consulted with the president before the riot.
Judge Nichols dismissed motions to delay the trial for contempt in separate hearings last week, including Thursday when Bannon’s lawyers expressed concern over an upcoming CNN report that has since been issued on his client and what they said were harmful comments made during a hearing last week held by the House Commission.
“I am aware of the current concerns about advertising and bias and if we can sit a jury that is appropriate and fair, but as I said before, I think the right way is to go through the process of being seen,” Nichols said. Thursday. The judge said he intended to get a jury that “would be appropriate, fair and impartial.”
Although the judge allowed the trial to proceed, Nichols left open the possibility that letters about Trump relinquishing his privilege and Bannon’s offer to cooperate with the committee could refer to the trial, saying the information was “at least potentially relevant” to Bannon’s defense.
Roscoe Howard Jr., the former U.S. attorney in Washington, said the best case for Bannon was if information about his offer of cooperation reaches the jury. Even if he does, however, claiming that the executive’s privilege prevented him from cooperating earlier will be a difficult argument to make because Bannon refused to even respond to the subpoena, Howard said.
“You have to come forward to invoke the privilege claim. You can’t call by phone,” he said.
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This story has been corrected to make the penultimate word “legislative” instead of “executive,” in paragraph 12, which begins “Bannon, 68.”