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(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Barring intervention by the Supreme Court, putrefying podcaster Steve Bannon will report to FCI Danbury on July 1 to serve his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.

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And Republicans in Congress are going to do something about it! What if … they retroactively disappear that subpoena? How do you like them apples, Mister Chief Justice?

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Oh, sure, the GOP has controlled the House since January of 2023 and failed to do anything about this supposed grievous miscarriage of justice. But now that whatever glimmer of hope has vanished that they might affect the outcome for Bannon, as well as Peter Navarro, who is just about finished with his own four-month stretch, they’re springing into action!

Politico reports that House leadership voted along party lines yesterday to “reject the previous Congress’ handling of the Jan. 6 select committee,” in preparation to file an amicus brief at the DC Circuit lawsplaining how actions of the previous Congress were unlegal.

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According to a statement posted by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise:

The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted 3-2 to file a brief with the D.C. Circuit in the case against Steve Bannon. The amicus brief will be submitted after Bannon files a petition for rehearing en banc and will be in support of neither party. It will withdraw certain arguments made by the House earlier in the litigation about the organization of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol during the prior Congress. House Republican Leadership continues to believe Speaker Pelosi abused her authority when organizing the Select Committee.

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Chief Justice Roberts is now considering Bannon’s request to stay out of the clink pending his petition for certiorari and/or en banc review at the DC Circuit. The Justice Department is due to file its response this afternoon, but the Court has already rejected multiple such petitions from Peter Navarro.

It’s not entirely clear what such an amicus would say, although a letter from Rep. Jim Banks to Speaker Mike Johnson, in which he refers to “the failed January 6th Select Committee” and its “illegitimate and unenforceable subpoenas” provides a fairly good idea. In short, he claims that the Republicans should have been able to veto the Committee from their position as the minority party, simply by withholding their participation.

Back in 2021, then Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy named five members of his caucus to the Committee. Then Speaker Pelosi rejected Banks and Rep. Jim Jordan, both of whom had encouraged the rioters, “with respect for the integrity of the investigation,” and invited McCarthy to name replacements. McCarthy responded by stomping off and refusing to participate — surely one of the dumbest political missteps in history — after which Pelosi named Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom have since been excommunicated from the GOP.

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So it’s more than a little bit disingenuous for Banks to complain that this was “the first and only congressional committee in history composed on entirely partisan lines.”

Banks goes on to claim that the committee’s subpoenas were invalid because the body lacked a ranking member. This argument was already roundly rejected by more or less every judge on the District Court in DC, since every subpoena recipient from Alex Jones to John Eastman tried it and lost because Congress gets to make its own rules without input from the judiciary. Banks also repeats the lie that the committee “deleted hundreds of records” and “because the improperly destroyed documents potentially included evidence of the Committee’s misconduct, they could have assisted either Mr. Bannon’s or Mr. Navarro’s defenses during future appeals.”

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That is simply false. The Committee made a strategically timed transfer to the White House of transcripts of interviews with Secret Service agents out of fear that Republicans would take over the House and feed the agents’ names to Tucker Carlson and the rest of the rightwing goons. The Committee also archived the transcripts but not the video recordings of some interviews, consistent with House rules. But even if it had destroyed evidence, that would have been of no moment to Bannon’s contempt of Congress prosecution.

But the fact that this is all bullshit hasn’t stopped the GOP from running with it. Here’s Speaker Johnson himself explaining to Hannity that the Gippers are riding to the rescue of Ol’ Three Shirts.

Speaker Johnson says they’re working on filing a amicus brief regarding Steve Bannon: I think it will help Steve Bannon. pic.twitter.com/ay7cddzh8X

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 26, 2024

“We think they covered up evidence and even more nefarious activities,” he intoned somberly. “We’ve been investigating the Committee itself.”

Johnson, an IRL lawyer, promised that they’d been “expressing that to the court” and opined that it “should help Steve Bannon in his appeal.” He then went on to explain that it was his studied opinion that the Easter Bunny is real and the Tooth Fairy was killed by fluoridated water.

No, not really.

As of this writing, said amicus brief has not appeared. But if and when it does, it will surely be well-reasoned and serious, not a chunk of performative, political nonsense full of long-debunked lies and misstatements of law.

US v. Bannon [Circuit Docket, via Court Listener]
US v. Bannon [Docket via Court Listener]
US v. Bannon [SCOTUS Docket]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

Topics

Crime, Government, Mike Johnson, Steve Bannon