Ahead of an upcoming House vote to rule former Trump advisor Steve Bannon guilty of criminal contempt of Congress for not going along with a congressional subpoena, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has said that the subpoena is “invalid.”
“Giving an invalid subpoena weakens congress’s power, not if someone votes against it,” McCarthy said at a media conference.
Earlier in the week, the House committee reviewing the January 6 protest at the United States Capitol voted to find Bannon in Congressional contempt after he would not comply with their subpoena. The full House will vote on the issue Thursday. GOP leadership has told its members to vote against this measure.
Bannon, through his attorney, informed the committee he would not go along with their subpoena, mentioning “executive privilege,” which guards certain communications inside the executive branch from the courts or the legislature. Legal experts have said this argument is in question, as Bannon was not working inside the administration during the protest and was therefore only a private citizen.
McCarthy said that Bannon “has the right to come to court to see if he does have the executive privilege or not.”
“I do not know if he does or doesn’t, but neither does the Democrat-led committee,” McCarthy said. “So, they are weakening the power of Congress by giving invalid subpoenas.”
Asked what causes the subpoena to be invalid, McCarthy said the minority was not allowed to participate in the select committee.
“They are doing this to target their enemies,” McCarthy said.
Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused some of McCarthy’s nominees to her select panel, citing their election fraud claims. Pelosi later appointed to the committee GOP Congress-members Liz Cheney from Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger from Illinois.
During a Wednesday Rules Committee hearing about ruling Bannon in contempt, Cheney stated it would be “the right response in this situation” because “witnesses cannot just ignore congressional subpoenas when they want to not attend.”
Cheney and Kinzinger are two well-known RINOs who have a long past of hating Trump and Trump supporters. The notion that this is not about revenge is completely ridiculous.
Author: Blake Ambrose
