Former Trump aide Steve Bannon cites Jan. 6 Capitol riot listening to in looking for delay of legal contempt trial

Former Trump White Home aide Steve Bannon has once more requested a federal decide to delay his upcoming trial on legal contempt expenses, this time citing repeated references to a few of his previous feedback throughout a listening to Tuesday of the Home choose committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Bannon’s legal professionals additionally stated in a courtroom submitting Wednesday that “the protection discovered simply in the present day” that CNN will air a one-hour documentary on Bannon on Sunday night, the day earlier than his trial for contempt of Congress is about to start in Washington, D.C.

Protection attorneys stated that each occasions create “the very severe danger of prejudice right here” towards Bannon amongst jurors to be chosen for his trial on expenses of willfully refusing to adjust to subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 Home panel demanding paperwork and his testimony.

“There’s simply nothing magic about July 18th [the trial’s scheduled start date] that may presumably justify the danger to Mr. Bannon’s elementary” constitutional rights to a good trial, the legal professionals wrote to Choose Carl Nichols.

They requested the decide to postpone the trial till after Oct. 15.

Nichols on Monday rejected a previous bid by Bannon to postpone the contempt trial by three months after his legal professionals argued that media protection of the Home hearings would hurt his proper to a good trial.

Nichols that very same day additionally stated that Bannon couldn’t argue at trial that he did not adjust to the subpoena on the grounds of government privilege, and barred him from calling Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Jan. 6 panel as witnesses.

The decide’s rulings successfully gutted a lot of Bannon’s potential protection, and led one among his legal professionals to complain in courtroom, “What is the level in going to trial right here if there aren’t any defenses?”

Bannon, who served simply seven months as a prime White Home adviser to Trump, faces at the very least 30 days in jail if convicted of the 2 contempt expenses he faces.

Of their courtroom submitting Wednesday renewing the trial delay request, Bannon’s legal professionals stated lawmakers at Tuesday’s Home committee listening to confirmed video excerpts of him talking on his podcast on Jan. 5, 2021, that had been “edited for optimum inflammatory impact.”

“All hell goes to interrupt free tomorrow,” Bannon stated on that video. “All converging and now we’re on, as they are saying, the purpose of assault. Proper? The purpose of assault tomorrow. I am going to inform you this, it is not going to occur such as you suppose it’ll occur. OK? It is going to be fairly terribly completely different. And all I can say is strap in.”

Later that very same evening, a committee member stated, Bannon and then-President Donald Trump spoke on the phone for six minutes.

The next day, hundreds of Trump supporters rioted inside and outside the Capitol, delaying for hours the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral Faculty victory by a joint session of Congress.

Bannon’s protection submitting Wednesday additionally detailed the CNN particular report scheduled to air Sunday, which is titled “Divided We Fall.”

“The Particular Report on Mr. Bannon, broadcast on the eve of trial is being extensively promoted with a trailer and particular bulletins by key CNN hosts,” the submitting stated.

A CNN trailer for the particular exhibits Bannon saying, “We’ll govern for 100 years,” the submitting famous.

A narrator then says on the trailer, “In uncommon interviews, CNN investigates the person and his grasp plan,” and a video clip exhibits former Trump marketing campaign supervisor Brad Parscale saying, “Bannon’s calling the performs.”

Bannon’s legal professionals wrote, “The teaser makes use of the time period ‘Grasp Plan’ to explain Mr. Bannon’s purported machinations, with clearly intentional reference to this well-known weighted time period referring to historical past’s most diabolical plot.”

That sentence ends with a footnote to an outline of a guide titled, “Hitler’s Masterplan, 1933-1945,” which the writer description stated detailed “Hitler’s unrealised imaginative and prescient for a Europe dominated by the Third Reich.”

Bannon’s legal professionals wrote, “The Particular Report documentary, broadcast on this broadly disseminated community undoubtedly will likely be terribly inflammatory and overwhelming prejudicial for a potential juror, starting service on this trial the next day.”