quote, irrelevant to the contempt of congress case against him. that is set to begin next week. the doj wrote, quote, the defendant s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet obl gigations, but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability. bannon s reversal comes after he received a letter from former trump that waives executive privilege, but new court documents show that an attorney for former president trump actually spoke to the fbi weeks ago and contradicted bannon s claim that the former president had invoked executive privilege over particular information or materials, so who is telling the truth and who is not? more on that in a moment. also, in the january 6th public hearing that is tomorrow, this is the next one, the panel is expected to focus on how the violent mob came together, the rule of extremist groups in the deadly insurrection, and any connections of those groups to trump s inner circle. a former spokesman for the oath keepers, a far right
have one at a time. that s one of only six reasons why his claim orbanen s 11th hour claim of executive privilege is bogus, and as jessica mentioned, the attorney said he never did. so it s really a non starter in eight different ways. but it doesn t apply to anything else because trump doesn t have any executive privilege to waive. it s just a last-minute employ to try to affect the dynamic of the trial. harry, you are skeptical that bannon will ever testify. his demand is i will testify before this committee, but you can t depose me behind closed doors first. you have to do it all in public. basically hand me the microphone on live television. i can see the appeal of that from his perspective, however that s not how, as you point out, prosecutors work.
people s testimony. so he wasn t directly asked to confirm or deny. but everything that he said did not contradict previous testimony. in fact, committee sources have said that they were very satisfied with what he told them, that they made a lot of headway despite the fact that he did invoke executive privilege on a few issues. it is almost certain we will see clips of testimony at future hearings. thanks very much. joining us now is former u.s. attorney, deputy assistant attorney general harry litman. good to have you on, sir. i wonder, first on the executive privilege claim that apparently never was, what does this mean for the former president if he did not, in fact, claim executive or invoke, rather, executive privilege? does this affect access to other potential witnesses and documents for the committee and courts? look, he never had executive privilege to apply in the first place. he wasn t the president, we only
quote, irrelevant to the contempt of congress case against him. that is set to begin next week. the doj wrote, quote, the defendant s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet obl gigations, but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability. bannon s reversal comes after he received a letter from former trump that waives executive privilege, but new court documents show that an attorney for former president trump actually spoke to the fbi weeks ago and contradicted bannon s claim that the former president had invoked executive privilege over particular information or materials, so who is telling the truth and who is not? more on that in a moment. also, in the january 6th public hearing that is tomorrow, this is the next one, the panel is expected to focus on how the violent mob came together, the rule of extremist groups in the deadly insurrection, and any connections of those groups to