(PatriotWise.com)- Steve Bannon’s guilty verdict that has the former White House advisor facing up to two years in prison might be overturned says a prominent lawyer, according to Conservative Brief. Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation into the insurrection incited by President Trump and every other conservative that they dislike.
Bannon’s lawyers, however, filed a motion for a mistrial after alleging that the judge misinterpreted the law and prevented Bannon from calling members of Congress as witnesses. His defense attorney reportedly spoke to Breitbart, saying that the judge adopted a narrow view of “willfulness.” The motion for a new trial will reconsider the meaning of “willfulness.”
The motion, which is worth quoting in full, states that Bannon believed he was acting in accordance with the law when he responded to the subpoena in the way that he did. He was also under executive privilege at the time, which Trump eventually revoked already after he left office. The process is not intuitive the motion states.
“Mr. Bannon was barred from putting on any evidence or argument that he never believed he was doing anything unlawful; and indeed, understood and believed that he responded to the subpoena in the only way the law permitted, once executive privilege was invoked. How to respond to a congressional subpoena, let alone when executive privilege is invoked, certainly is not an intuitive process; but Mr. Bannon was prohibited from putting on evidence or argument that he relied on his experienced lawyer’s direction that the law prohibited him from complying with the subpoena,” the motion states.
Former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz called the conviction a “violation of the Constitution” and said that a higher court will likely overturn the verdict. Dershowitz also alleged that Bannon did not have a fair trial because he was not in front of a fair jury and then the judge took away his defense from him, preventing him to call witnesses. He suggested that the case was solely because he was a supporter of Trump.
“And all you had to do was say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man Bannon worked for Trump.’ That’s the end of the case,” he said.
The January 6 Select Committee is continuing their theatrical investigations into Trump with disgraced Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney as a ranking member, who was successfully ousted in her Republican primary, despite her pandering to Democratic voters.
