there are people in this chamber right now who were evacuated with me and the rest of us on that day during that attack, people who now seem to have forgotten the danger of the moment, the assault on the constitution, the assault on our congress. republican congresswoman liz cheney calls out members of her own party for their continued dismissal of the january 6th attack on the capitol. now the house has voted to hold steve bannon in contempt of congress, but will the justice department prosecute? a lot happening on this friday morning, willie. joe is off, but we start with some breaking news involving actor alec baldwin. yeah, this is a terrible story. yesterday in new mexico alec baldwin fired a prop gun that killed a woman and injured a man on the set of the movie rust. cinematographer was killed, the
committee needs to show its teeth and they are serious. if they don t and they back down, it s hard to make the argument of the congress of a coequal branch of the government to the white house. and eddie, at least in the case of steve bannon, that committee has shown voting unanimously to hold him in contempt of congress and pushing this through the house and onto the justice department. i guess it s no surprise to her or any of us that only nine republicans hopped on board, seven of them were the republicans who voted for impeachment to others joined nancy mace of south carolina made the point for her vote for
obvious but it appears pete williams was pointing out some of the weak spots in trying to sort of drag steve bannon out to testify, and that would be the issue of executive privilege. yet he wasn t working for the white house. yeah. he was not a white house official. arguably, as pete noted, this is not within the presidential responsibilities to contest the election results, so those are two weak threads in the argument that he should be shielded from contempt here. i think the bigger story the fact that just nine republicans in the house voted to enforce the subpoena. or issue the subpoena. i think if you look at it, circumstantially it s hard to find a case you can make a more proactive case doing this. this was an attack literally on the capitol, on their place of work. members of congress were directly threatened by the insurrection and on top of that
yet so many of those republicans voted against it. this matter now heads to the justice department. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams explains what happens then. reporter: the justice department says it will apply the facts and the law in deciding whether to charge steve bannon with criminal contempt of congress. so here are some things the prosecutors are likely to consider. first, the evidence is strong. he s clearly refuse to go comply with the congressional subpoena, and there s a substantial federal interest in making sure that people do comply. bannon s lawyer says he s refusing because donald trump is exerting executive privilege but that claim is undercut. executive privilege is only about communications about a president s official duties. talk about challenging the election results might not qualify. and there s the fact that bannon wasn t even in the government around the time of the capitol riot. those are all factors to weigh in favor of the prosecution includ
has no way on its own to compel bannon to comply with a subpoena. on the other hand here are some factors to consider against charging him. a former president does have some claim of executive privilege and the courts have never clarified exactly what level of privilege former presidents can claim, but it s not zero. since at least 2007, the justice department has taken the position that the privilege applies even to a president s conversations with people outside the executive branch. getting a conviction requires proof that somebody acted with improper intent, and some federal courts have ruled that a good faith reliance on the advice of counsel. and then there s the matter of precedent. the justice department has prosecuted dozens of people for contempt of congress, but it has never done it in a case involving a claim of executive privilege. so prosecuting bannon could set a precedent that would expose former officials in the future to contempt charges in highly