Steve Bannon trial: Jury selection expected to begin

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s contempt-of-Congress trial will stretch into a second day after lawyers labored through a long Monday session trying to select a jury without preconceived opinions. Bannon is facing criminal charges after refusing for months to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Bannon, an unofficial adviser to President Donald Trump at the time of the Capitol attack is charged in federal court with defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee that sought his records and testimony. He was indicted in November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, one month after the Justice Department received a congressional referral. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.

Monday’s session before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols was entirely focused on jury selection in a slow-moving process known as voir dire. By the end of the day, 22 prospective jurors had been identified. The trial will resume Tuesday morning as lawyers for Bannon and the government whittle the list down to 14 — with 12 jurors and two alternates.

Much of Monday’s questioning of potential jurors by Bannon’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, centered on how much of the wide coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings they’ve watched and whether they have opinions about the committee and its work.

In one case, a prospective juror told Nichols that remaining impartial would be “a challenge” for him since “I do believe (Bannon) is guilty.”

That admission, in addition to disqualifying the potential juror, prompted additional questioning of others who had sat next to the man to determine how widely he had shared his opinion.

The high-profile and divisive nature of the case hung over Monday’s session, with Corcoran seeking to block jurors who expressed strong opinions about Bannon or Trump, or who had any sort of personal connection to Jan. 6 or the Capitol.

At one point, Judge Nichols agreed to disqualify a woman whose mother is a staffer for Democratic Florida Rep. Lois Frankel. In another case Corcoran argued successfully to disqualify a man who said the Jan. 6 committee’s work was “important” and he was closely tracking its developments.

“He comes into it with a frame of mind where he’s highly focused on Jan. 6,” Corcoran said. “I just don’t think he can be fair.”

Bannon attended the entire session, but never spoke.

The trial follows a flurry of activity in the case since July 9. Over a week ago, the former White House strategist notified the committee that he is now willing to testify. His former lawyer, Robert Costello, said the change was because Trump had waived his executive privilege claim preventing the testimony.

Bannon, 68, had been one of the most prominent of the Trump-allied holdouts refusing to testify before the committee. He had argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold confidential information from the courts and the legislative branch.

Trump has repeatedly asserted executive privilege — even though he’s a former, not current president —…