This is just a foretasting of the banquet of bullshit which is being prepared and served to the gullible by the guilty. The years that Donald Trump was in office he tested the waters to see what he could get away with in terms of lying. He found the waters very good, stocked with lots of stupid fish, who he could lie to with impunity. Whatever he said, they believed and sent him money. Then he hooked onto the Big Lie and he’s doubling and tripling down on that, because it’s been proven that he can lie to his supporters and they buy it. The Big Lie is his platform for his 2024 run — and that’s assuming that he doesn’t become Speaker of the House in a Republican takeover next year. That’s Matt Gaetz’ favorite line these days, that he’ll nominate Trump for Speaker and that’s assuming Gaetz isn’t in prison.
But I don’t want to run ahead of myself. This column is about Steve Bannon claiming something exists which flat out doesn’t. Think of the Old West stories you’ve seen about the medicine man who rolls up to the unsuspecting village and sells snake oil and that’s precisely what’s going on here.
Steve Bannon speaks publicly for the first time about his defiance of the J6 Select Committee subpoena. He would really love to cooperate, but Trump won’t let him. pic.twitter.com/XfPxeBjYFX
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 9, 2021
Here’s what Haberman said.
"President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents.” – White House Counsel Remus says in letter to National Archives. https://t.co/55eytFTWbD
— Jonathan Landay (@JonathanLanday) October 8, 2021
So you’ve got Bannon being “instructed” by Trump to “invoke any immunities or privileges” and the simple truth is Trump is in no position to instruct anybody about caa caa and Bannon has no immunities or privileges.
The bottom line is that Trump is not the president now so he’s in no position to invoke any presidential privileges and Steve Bannon was not an advisor to Trump on January 6. He was long gone. Bannon was a private citizen at the time in question and any actions he took on that day will be judged in that light. Executive privilege covers conversations a president has with his top advisors. This “theory” of Bannon’s fails on both counts. Every legal scholar in the country has pointed this out, but right-wingnuttia doesn’t listen to legal scholars, they listen to propaganda. And that is Bannon’s back yard.
You will hear more of the same and it looks like criminal referrals will soon be coming down the pike.
The tragic irony here is that Trump, who is not only lying his ass off but doing everything he can to unravel the constitution, wants to be restored to power. And there are tens of millions of lunatics who subscribe to that idea along with him.
Democracy is on life support. I fear for this country with so many idiots in it.
Neither Bannon nor the former guy are, or ever have been, attorneys, so attorney-client privilege cannot possibly apply (and it wouldn’t apply if third parties were there).
Privilege also doesn’t apply because whatever the former guy wanted was illegal – he was planning a criminal act.
I hope all of them end up in adjoining cells for a month or so.
“Executive Privilege” is different than “Attorney-Client Privilege” under the rules of civil or criminal discovery. Nevertheless, gotta believe in order to invoke and sustain Executive Privilege to prevent legal disclosure of documents, one must be in the Executive position (POTUS). Even if those documents were generated while he was POTUS, also gotta believe, just like TFG’s immunity to prosecution, that privilege ended once Biden was sworn in. Knowing TFG and his past pattern in lawsuits, he will make sure his hack attorneys claim all kinds of privileges he’s not entitled to under law to prevent disclosing documents with evidence that will send him to the slammer, while attempting to have his remaining insiders in govt. illegally destroy those docs and the associated metadata.
Well, the main sticking point here is that executive privilege does NOT exist when it comes to dealings with PRIVATE citizens–especially those who weren’t afforded official recognition as a Presidential advisor. “Unofficial advisors” don’t exist in politics. Whatever conversations two “friends” may have (assuming one is President at the time) are only as confidential as the two are willing to agree to but, under the law, they’re NOT protected speech. In a regular courtroom, a “friend” can be compelled to testify–whether willingly or as a “hostile” witness–and the testimony is subject to the same penalties as any other. If the “friend” refuses to testify, he’s held in contempt of court and can be locked away until he agrees to testify; if his testimony is perjurious, he can be punished by jail time and/or fines.