ultimately up to the attorney general-maker garland, if he wants to move forward on this, and at this point it s just not clear what he s going to do. now bannon has argued repeatedly that he will not comply unless ordered to do so by a court. he notes he s been directed by former president trump not to cooperate because he wants to raise issues of privilege. now the committee flatly rejects that action. remind us the results of a criminal conviction. if convicted he could be looking at a fine and/or jail time. again, this is incredibly rare but i m told by lawyers friendly to the former president, they said, look, jail time is a real possibility here if convicted. ana, there s another possibility here which is if he s prosecuted, he may not be convicted, and that is certainly very different than the message that the committee is intending to send here and something like
bannon refusing to cooperate on the grounds that trump has exercised executive privilege is bogus. a former president has no privilege. we have never seen a case of a former president exercising executive privilege themselves. it has been exercised for them by current presidents. but never by a former president. that s maybe why bannon s lawyer keeps referring to trump as president trump, as opposed to former president trump, tipping his hand that he would know it doesn t make any sense legally. now bannon, even if brought on charges of contempt, he can always plead the fifth. he can always offer to comply at some point along the process. the question becomes, how late can he do that before it just triggers the prosecution? what is this about? it s not about the law. it s certainly about defiance and also delay for bannon and the others. they re hoping the committee runs out of gas or that the midterms put trumpers back in control.
by current presidents. but never by a former president. that s maybe why bannon s lawyer keeps referring to trump as president trump, as opposed to former president trump, tipping his hand that he would know it doesn t make any sense legally. now bannon, even if brought on charges of contempt, he can always plead the fifth. he can always offer to comply at some point along the process. the question becomes, how late can he do that before it just triggers the prosecution? what is this about? it s not about the law. it s certainly about defiance and also delay for bannon and the others. they re hoping the committee runs out of gas or that the midterms put trumpers back in control. and there is also the risk here that contempt charges do make bannon a martyr to his corrosive cause. the committee is hoping bannon gets an orange jumpsuit for his defiance, trumpers will think twice before they refuse to comply. why do they want them?
president, but to protect the office of the presidency and the republic. of course as we learned in the u.s. versus nixon case back in the watergate era, executive privilege is not absolute. and it was yield in there s a greater interest. president biden has said there s a greater interest here in learning what happened in the january six insurrection, that any executive privilege. ultimately we are going to hear from people like jeffrey clark and others about what happened in those days leading up to january six. there s also a big showdown scheduled for tomorrow, on bannon. i want to talk about this. there s four people that were initially subpoenaed, meadows, scavino, kash patel and steve bannon. now bannon, was not even a part of the white house, he was an informal adviser. he s saying there is an executive privilege claim by the ex president, who wasn t formerly part of the. government very very weak. he has not been in contact with the committee, and says basically all violate
receiving all the testimony and evidence we subpoenaed. this is a legal order as well as a civic duty to share info about the most sweeping violent attack on congress since the war of 1812. something is going to happen, tomorrow one where the. other and then it will be a question about the department of justice, with the committee, doesn t doj does if he doesn t show up. yes, but then with the courts. do something is going to happen, i ll tell you what it. is banning won t show up. and barbs 100 percent right about the law, it does belong to the sitting president, but the point, is are they able to play, to roll the same slow game, that they did with the impeachment. bannon is a very good example. he has a very weak claim as you say. it s been years since he was even in the department. but if he goes to court, we have this terrible disconnect, between the natural timeline of the case, 18 months to two years, and the natural timeline of the investigation. so what matters now, are not