DOJ seeks to limit Steve Bannon’s defense ahead of July contempt-of-Congress

On Apr 15, 2022

The Justice Department wants excluded its internal opinions and writings laying out the department’s views on whether current or former federal officials can be prosecuted in subpoena disputes where they raised executive privilege or immunity claims. Bannon obtained those records after securing a discovery order from the judge, though several of the documents were already public and cited in previous Bannon filings.

Shortly after the Justice Department submitted its request to exclude those records, Bannon pointed to the documents in a notice he filed with the court about his intentions to assert an “entrapment by estoppel” defense — meaning an argument that the defendant had been misled by government statements to believe his conduct was legal.

The Justice Department also asked the judge to keep out any evidence Bannon seeks to put forward that he had complied with previous subpoenas; according to the department’s account of a presentation Bannon’s lawyer gave to prosecutors before his client was charged, Bannon testified in four previous circumstances — in the various Russia 2016 election interference probes — about his communications with Trump.

“Just as the fact that a person did not rob a bank on one day is irrelevant to determining whether he robbed a bank on another, whether the Defendant complied with other subpoenas or requests for testimony—even those involving communications with the former President—is irrelevant to determining whether he unlawfully refused to comply with the Committee’s subpoena here,” the Justice Department wrote Friday.

Finally, the government told the court that Bannon should not be able to argue at his trial that the committee’s subpoena of him was invalid because of supposed procedural defects plaguing the committee.

Bannon is scheduled to go to trial in July in the criminal contempt-of-Congress case the department has brought against him for not complying with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection. Bannon has pleaded not guilty and is expected to file a request that his case be dismissed later on Friday.

Already, the Justice Department has struck a major blow to Bannon’s defense with a ruling last week from his judge, US District Judge Carl Nichols, granting the government’s request to exclude evidence that Bannon was following the advice of his lawyer when opting not to comply with the subpoena. The Justice Department cited that ruling Friday in its latest requests to limit Bannon’s defense.

The department also argued that the internal department documents Bannon has cited so far address scenarios distinct from what Bannon was facing when he chose not to participate in the probe.

“The Defendant was not subpoenaed in relation to his time as an Executive Branch official and he was never directed by the Executive Branch or former President Donald Trump to engage in total noncompliance with the January 6th Select Committee’s (‘the Committee’) subpoena as he chose to do,” the filing said. “Given the evidence’s irrelevance, the Court should exclude it.”

Any procedural objections Bannon would seek to raise about the committee’s subpoena are…

DOJ seeks to limit Steve Bannon’s defense ahead of July contempt-of-Congress

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