Steve Bannon, a former close adviser to ex-President Donald Trump, arrived in court smiling as the jury selection began for his contempt of Congress trial.
Bannon, who served as a White House’s chief strategist and a top executive of Trump’s 2016 campaign, waved at the press as he walked into a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, on Monday for proceedings.
He faces two criminal contempt charges and up to two years of jail time for refusing to testify and produce documents to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.
Each charge carries a minimum of 30 days in prison with a maximum of one year.
Bannon originally claimed he did not have to comply with the investigation due to ‘executive privilege’, even though it remains unclear if this principle applied to Trump under the circumstances. The former president has now waived this claim, according to Bannon’s lawyer Robert Costello.
Trump has repeatedly invoked executive privilege to stall the release of documents to the House committee. In January, the Supreme Court ruled against the ex-president after he tried to prevent the National Archives from cooperating with the panel.
Earlier this month, presiding US District Judge Carl Nichols told Bannon’s legal team that he would not be permitted to argue that executive privilege justified his refusal to testify to the House committee.
Nichols did leave open the option for Bannon’s legal team to present letters and documents referencing Trump’s assertion of executive privilege, saying that they were ‘at least potentially relevant’.
Bannon had previously said that he was going to make these charges ‘the misdemeanor from hell’ for the Biden administration. He also said he intended to use the trial to force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Select Committee take the stand as witnesses.
Nichols rejected Bannon’s attempt to subpoena members of Congress.
Eight jurors were seated when the court broke for lunch on July 18. Bannon’s lawyers questioned potential jurors on how much of the televised January 6 hearings they each watched.
Nichols has also rejected Bannon’s repeated attempts to stall or delay the trial due to the ongoing investigations and media coverage.
‘I am cognizant of current concerns about publicity and bias and whether we can seat a jury that is going to be appropriate and fair, but as I said before, I believe the appropriate course is to go through the voir dire process,’ he said on Thursday.
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