A federal jury on Friday convicted Trump White House chief adviser Steve Bannon of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the partisan House Select Committee "investigating" the Jan. 6, 2021 protest at the U.S. Capitol.
Bannon faces a minimum sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail for each count.
“If I go to jail, I go to jail. I will never back off,” Bannon told Fox News host Tucker Carlson following the conviction. “I’ve committed my life to this program…to get this done. I will never back off. I support Trump and the Constitution and I’m not backing off one inch. If I go to jail, so be it.”
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said he believes Bannon's contempt of Congress conviction will be overturned on constitutional grounds.
Friday’s convictions are “entirely in violation of the Constitution” in part because the jury was comprised of “probably 97 percent Trump haters,” Dershowitz told Newsmax.
”The only provision of the Constitution, which appears basically twice, is trial by jury in and in front of a fair jury,” he explained. ”Number one, he didn’t have a fair jury. Number two, the judge took his defenses away from him.”
Illinois RINO Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of those infamous "Trump haters," told ABC News following Bannon's conviction: “It’s good. I mean, justice, right? Come in, you can plead the fifth if you want in front of our committee but you can’t ignore a congressional subpoena or you’ll pay the price.”
Bannon noted that very few in the past have, as Kinzinger claimed, "paid the price."
During his interview with Carlson, Bannon pointed out that two recent cases of contempt of Congress involved Democrat Obama era officials who were ultimately either exonerated or never charged: then-Attorney General Eric Holder over the Fast & Furious gun-running scandal – and ex-IRS employee Lois Lerner during the revenuer’s targeting of conservative and grassroots groups.
The last prosecution of a contempt of Congress citation was against the G. Gordon Liddy, who was connected to Republican President Richard Nixon.
“I would tell the January 6 [Committee] staff right now: Preserve your documents because there’s going to be a real committee. And this is going to be backed by Republican grassroots voters and MAGA to say we want to get to the bottom of this for the good of the nation,” Bannon told Carlson.
“Republicans have to have the stones to put on a real hearing.”
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