According to foreign media reports, on the 19th local time, the House committee responsible for investigating the riots in the US Capitol on January 6 unanimously voted to arrest former White House aide Steve Bannon for criminal contempt of court, because he was suspected of participating in the planning of the US Congressional riots, and had long flouted Congress, defying the summons and refusing to testify in court.
Bannon was the chief strategist and senior adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump and is a longtime ally of Trump. In 2016, he joined the Trump campaign and was later credited with Trump's victory. After Trump became president of the United States, Bannon became the White House's chief strategy expert and senior adviser.
Prior to that, Bannon was executive chairman of Breitbart News, where he became the leading media outlet for the "alt-right movement" in the United States. The movement opposed multiculturalism and defended "Western values," often associated with white supremacism.
In August 2017, Bannon left the White House amid a chorus of controversy and returned to the helm of Brightbart News.
On August 20, 2020, Bannon was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the "We Build Walls" project. The online giving program raised $25 million to build the southern U.S. border wall, but Bannon is accused of spending the money on personal expenses, the statement said. On January 19, however, Trump pardoned Bannon in the final hours of his term.
For now, Trump is still defending his supporters who broke into the Capitol that day and trying to block the committee's work, instructing Bannon and others not to answer questions from the investigation. On the 18th, Trump just sued Congress.
House Committee Chairwoman Bennie Thompson, Miss Democrat, said Tuesday that Bannon completely ignored our subpoena and refused to testify in court. She further said that while Bannon may be willing to show his full loyalty to former President Trump by whitewashing the shameful congressional riots of Jan. 6, the committee vote would be a warning to other witnesses anyway.
"We're not going to be intimidated. We don't get distracted. We're not going to be stopped," Thompson said.
The vote on the evening of the 19th referred Bannon's contempt of the court's resolution to the House of Representatives, which is expected to vote Thursday. The House then approved that the matter would be referred to the Ministry of Justice, which would decide whether to institute criminal proceedings against Bannon.
The resolution said Bannon was not legally qualified to reject the commission. Although Trump's lawyers argue that Bannon should not disclose information because it is protected by the privileges of the former president's office. The committee noted that Bannon was fired from his White House job in 2017 and that he was just an ordinary citizen when he spoke to Trump before the congressional unrest.
The committee said they were pursuing Bannon's testimony after bannon had reportedly communicated with Trump prior to the congressional unrest.
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming said: "The privilege arguments of Bannon and former President Trump also suggest that Trump was personally involved in the planning and execution of the congressional riots on the day, and we will go to the bottom of the matter." ”
Joe Nasson Sue, Biden's deputy legal counsel, wrote to Bannon's lawyer this week, saying, "You don't have any reason to refuse to testify in court." ”
But Bannon always said he needed a court order to accept his subpoena.
The committee is currently in talks with mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, and Kashyap Patel, a former White House and Pentagon aide. It also summoned more than a dozen people who helped plan in the U.S. riots, some of whom are already handing over documents and testifying.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said all other subpoenaed witnesses either followed the rules or acted in good faith, rather than ignoring our subpoenas, as Bannon did.
"For congressional riot participants, cooperating with the investigation will be an opportunity for them to make up for it, and some of them feel terrible about their role in the incident," Ruskin said
Of course, he also said that there may be more votes aimed at contempt of the court in the future.
"Our patience is not unlimited," Rep. Adam Kinzinger, another Republican on the committee, said of negotiations with some witnesses.
Wuhan Morning Post intern reporter Zhang Jiao