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Steve Bannon was charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the Jan. 6 committee.
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In a filing filed Wednesday, his lawyers asked for the trial to be postponed until well after the hearings.
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His lawyers say the “media blitz” of the hearings would damage his trial.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is asking for his trial for contempt of Congress to be adjourned because coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings was too public and could damage his case.
A federal grand jury indicted Bannon in November 2021 on two counts of contempt for Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol riots.
Bannon pleaded not guiltyand said issues with former President Donald Trump’s executive privilege over materials related to the commission needed to be resolved first.
on a Wednesday submit to courtBannon’s lawyers argued that the Coverage of the commission’s hearings — and what they called the ensuing “media blitz” — justifies a delay in his trial.
They asked for a postponement “due to the unprecedented level of harmful publicity ahead of the trial” generated by the hearings, the filing said.
With Bannon’s trial date set for July 18, there is a possibility that Bannon’s trial and the committee hearings themselves will be close together.
A week ago, the commission announced that it would extend its timetable to accommodate the July 4 holiday, with the earliest return date being July 11. NPR reported†
“When the trial was scheduled, neither the Court nor the parties were aware of the June and July media blitz by the Select Committee,” argued Bannon’s attorneys Evan Corcoran, David Schoen and Robert Costello.
They asked to move the date of the trial to mid-October, arguing that Bannon’s verdict must come from “evidence presented at trial, not on ‘evidence’ or ‘findings’ presented in congressional hearings, or on the prejudices of jurors.”
This includes material from Bannon’s own hearings, they said. As an example, the attorneys referenced have: the June 9 hearingwhich was broadcast primetime on most major networks.
During that hearing, the panel showed a video in which Bannon says in his podcast on January 5, “Tomorrow all hell will break loose. Understand this. Tomorrow all hell will break loose.”
On June 15, Bannon lost a bid to drop the case on the grounds that the committee itself was invalid, arguing that it did not have the correct number of members. as Insider’s C. Ryan Barber reported†
The judge — Trump-appointed Carl Nichols — cited Supreme Court precedent to show that membership of the commission of nine was within the law.
Read the original article Business Insider