Cheney Puts Trump Allies On Notice After Bannon Contempt Vote

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This week, the House formally voted to refer Steve Bannon to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution over contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. Bannon tied his defiance to claims of executive privilege from former President Trump, who claimed that such privilege covers information that the riot investigation committee is after, but the riot investigation committee rejected this argument. After the House voted to hold Bannon in contempt — with the support of nine Republicans — Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who is a member of the committee, spoke of the importance of the investigation.

In addition, Cheney’s specific comments about the imperative nature of complying with Congressional subpoenas could easily apply to Trump as well, since it’s been made clear that Trump’s testimony might be sought. Cheney commented as follows, discussing the Republicans’ backing for holding Steve Bannon in contempt:

‘I think it reflects the fact that this should not be a partisan issue, and that people recognize that what happened on January 6 can’t go un-investigated, and that when Congress issues a subpoena, you can’t simply fail to comply with it. And so I think that you have clearly a majority of the members of the House, including Republicans as well, who recognize the need to make sure that we hold Mr. Bannon in contempt.’

Cheney added, referring to Bannon, that “if you look at what he has said publicly, he clearly had knowledge ahead of time [of the impending violence]… and he is clearly in a position to provide important information to the committee.” That important information could include firsthand accounts of what Trump was doing around the time of the violence, since he’s been reported to have been in contact with Trump the day before it all unfolded. Check out Cheney’s comments below:

Separately, a post went up on Cheney’s official Twitter account showing some of Bannon’s comments that suggest he had some sort of advance knowledge of what was gearing up to take place on January 6. Could he have shared this knowledge with Trump — who could have then proceeded as though nothing was amiss while continuing to provide the space for the chaos to unfold in the process? To this day, Trump denies that what took place on January 6 was all that bad. Referring to his false claims of election fraud, he said just this Thursday that the “insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!” See Cheney’s post below: