WASHINGTON — As his criminal contempt of Congress trial approaches, Stephen K. Bannon, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, who has been involved in his plans to cancel the 2020 election, has informed the House committee investigating the Capitol attack that he is now willing to testify, according to two letters obtained by The New York Times.
His decision is a remarkable turnaround for Mr. Bannon, who until Saturday was among the committee’s most persistent and defiant potential witnesses. He had vowed to make the criminal case against him a “crime from hell” for the Justice Department.
But with the possibility of two years in prison and large fines looming on the horizon, Mr. Bannon is authorized to testify by Mr. Trump, his lawyer told the committee in a letter late Saturday.
The former president had previously instructed Mr Bannon and other aides not to cooperate with the panel, arguing that executive privilege – the president’s power to withhold certain internal executive branch information, particularly confidential communications involving him or his superiors assistants – forces them to be silent. But in recent days, as several witnesses have come forward to offer damning testimony to a House panel about his conduct, Mr. Trump has grown frustrated that one of his fiercest defenders has yet to appear before the committee. people close to him said.
“Mr. Bannon is ready and indeed prefers to testify at your public hearing,” Robert J. Costello, a lawyer for Mr. Bannon, wrote to Representative Benny Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the committee.
Key takeaways from the January 6 hearings
Mr. Costello said Mr. Bannon’s decision to comply with the committee’s subpoena came after he was cleared to testify by Mr. Trump. He provided the group with a letter that Mr. Trump sent to Mr. Bannon on Saturday that waived any claim to executive privilege over that testimony.
The commission and the Justice Department have long argued that Mr. Trump has no valid claim of executive privilege over Mr. Bannon’s testimony, in part because Mr. Bannon left the White House in 2017 and was a private individual when he participated in Mr. Trump’s efforts to hang on to power after the 2020 election.
“When you were first subpoenaed to testify and produce documents, I invoked executive privilege,” Mr. Trump wrote in his letter to Mr. Bannon on Saturday. “However, I have seen how unfairly you and others have been treated, having to spend huge sums of money on legal fees and all the trauma you have to go through out of love for your country and respect for the office of president. .”
“Therefore,” he continued, “if you agree to the time and place for your testimony, I will waive executive privilege for you to come in and testify truthfully and honestly as requested by the de-elected committee of political thugs and hacks.”
Mr. Bannon’s trial on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress is scheduled for July 18. Each charge carries a penalty of up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
It remains to be seen how Mr. Bannon’s new position will affect criminal proceedings and how responsive he will be. He can refuse to speak on certain subjects, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as some other witnesses have done. But the committee has repeatedly said it needs to hear from Mr. Bannon and get the documents it has requested from him about plans to cancel the 2020 election.
“We got the letter around midnight from his lawyer saying he was going to testify, and we wanted him to testify,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat and member of the committee, told CNN on Sunday. “So the committee, of course, hasn’t had a chance to discuss it yet, but I expect we will hear it. There are a lot of questions we have for him.”
If Mr. Bannon eventually comes forward for an interview, he will testify behind closed doors, as hundreds of other witnesses have, Ms. Lofgren said. The commission has carefully choreographed its public hearings to make a streamlined presentation of its case and has worked to avoid public conversations with witnesses.
For months, Mr. Bannon has been perhaps the most bombastic and fiery potential witness the committee has called to testify. He refused to hand over any documents or give a minute of testimony. Because of his intransigence, the House of Representatives voted in October to impeach Mr. Bannon with a felony count of contempt of Congress.
But the group insisted that Mr. Bannon, a former chief strategist and adviser to Mr. Trump, could help investigators better understand the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, which was aimed at stopping the certification of the president’s victory Biden.
On his Jan. 5, 2021, radio show, Mr. Bannon promised that “hell will break loose tomorrow,” a statement that indicated he “had some premonition of extreme events that would occur the next day,” he said the commission in a report.
Investigators also pointed to a conversation Mr. Bannon had with Mr. Trump on Dec. 30, 2020, in which he urged him to focus his efforts on Jan. 6, the day Congress was supposed to make the official vote count certified. Mr. Biden’s victory. Mr. Bannon also attended a meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington the day before the violence when plans were discussed to try to overturn the results of the election the next day.
Mr. Bannon’s criminal case is only the latest against him.
Federal prosecutors indicted and arrested him last year in Manhattan on charges related to money raised to promote Mr. Trump’s long-wanted border wall. But before he was to stand trial, he was pre-pardoned by Mr Trump hours before the former president left office.
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