bannon is set to go on trial for criminal contempt for refusing to comply with the committee subpoena. days before the select committee is said to hold more public hearings, let s bring in marshall cohen. does it appear likely that bannon will, indeed, testify before the panel? it is not clear yet if this is actually going to happen. it is a change of bannon s posture from where he had been over the last several months. he refused to testify and hand over any documents. he claimed that there was executive privilege. now, he says that donald trump has sent him a letter waving those claims. i just want to be very clear. the justice department does not think that those are very legitimate claims because steve bannon was not in the executive branch. he had left the white house in 2017. that led to him getting indicted for refusing to comply with the subpoena. now, donald trump says that he is waving those claims, which opens the door to steve bannon to go to the committee and o
excuse not to testify. we hear them talk about this letter that was received on behalf of bannon, saying he wants to set some conditions and is willing to talk. he was refusing the subpoena. how does any of this change the scope of things? my best guess is not at all. i think it is a ploy and it will not happen. as you say, it is totally connected with the trial. he wants to be able to say it is ham-handed, now the president has done this, i can talk. that suggests that back when he was refusing, he was doing nothing wrong because he was shielded by trump. of course, he never had the slightest claim, even leaving aside that trump was not empowered to make it. that is for starters. for second, this is a careful committee and they have gone, even as i ve they have had blockbusters, they go on the
good morning to you all and i will begin with you. let s go back to the votes in a moment. you cover congress closely, 229 to 202, nine republicans voting in favor of contempt. did any of those votes surprise you? yeah, you played some sound earlier of nancy mace, that was interesting that she worked for donald trump before she was a member of congress and there is fitzpatrick, republican from pennsylvania, the key district there was surprising by most folks to the fact that he voted for that. other than that, a lot of these members were folks that you would expect. you had obviously miss jeannie is voting for it and you had anthony gonzalez, a republican that s retiring. there were not a ton of surprises, only nine republicans voted for this. those are two that really stuck out to me. sam stein, not going to debate right or wrong here, some
of it seems quite obvious but it appears that pete williams was pointing out some of the weak spots trying to drag steve bannon out to testify and that would be the issue of executive privilege. yes, he was not working for the white house. yes, he was not a white house official and arguably pete noted, those are the arguments that he should be shielded from contempt here. the fact that nine republicans in the house voted to enforce the subpoena, i think if you look at it, circumstantially, this is attacked literally on the capitol, on the place of work. members of congress were directly threatened by the insurrection and on top of that
contempt of bannon. that was her explanation but the bottom line is republicans were never going to get on board with this investigation and everyone holding steve bannon in contempt of congress. william, it s clear that nine voted for but 202 voted no. that s evidence and that s evidence of description that joe scarborough has been using on this show over and over again as a no nothing party. they are advocating their responsibility, 2002 republicans in the house of representatives basically seated at the power of the house. we need to understand that for what it s. it connects for what jean was talking about the last hour about the republican party refused to take on the responsibilities of their oath. nine voted to hold bannon in