However Bannon struck a belligerent tone throughout his Friday interview with Carlson, and appeared to threaten congressional staffers on the committee with an investigation into their work. “I’ll inform the Jan. 6 workers proper now, protect your paperwork, as a result of there’s going to be an actual committee and this must be backed by Republican grass-roots voters,” he stated.

“The Democrats are utterly lawless, take a look at how they’ve run this committee,” he stated of the bipartisan panel.

Bannon additionally repeated a GOP speaking level that there was no rating Republican on the committee, although Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a distinguished critic of President Donald Trump’s try and overturn the 2020 election, serves as vice chair. A Trump-appointed federal decide has dominated that Cheney serving as vice chair as an alternative of “rating minority member” is a distinction with no distinction.

Representatives for Cheney and Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the Jan. 6 Committee, didn’t instantly return requests for remark.

Bannon is one in every of solely two Trump officers to face felony fees linked to rebuffing the committee, alongside ex-White Home commerce adviser Peter Okay. Navarro. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 21. Every of the 2 misdemeanor offenses that Bannon has been discovered responsible of carries a penalty of between 30 days and one 12 months in jail, although nobody has been jailed for contempt of Congress since 1948.

Bannon’s protection workforce stated it might file a “bulletproof” attraction, however their consumer appeared resigned to the potential of imprisonment.

“I assist Trump and the Structure and in the event that they need to put me in jail for that, so be it,” he stated.

The podcaster and longtime Trump confidant additionally criticized the authorized course of. “They took away each doable protection for someone to have a protection of regulation,” Bannon stated.

Hearings check Trump’s clout and GOP’s want to ‘neglect about Jan. 6’

U.S. District Decide Carl J. Nichols, who presided over the trial, rejected quite a few potential defenses and primarily restricted Bannon’s legal professionals to the difficulty of whether or not their consumer understood the deadlines for answering lawmakers’ calls for. Bannon’s attorneys intend to attraction a few of Nichols’ rulings.

Bannon’s choice to criticize the panel and the ruling on Carlson’s present may show unfavorable if he’s sentenced, stated Andrew M. Wright, a Washington-based lawyer who focuses on congressional investigations. Judges weigh acceptance of duty as a consider federal sentencing, he added.

“It’s onerous to foretell what the decide would do between the 30 days and the one 12 months, however I can actually inform you that I’d not counsel a consumer to exit on the courthouse and trash the method,” stated Wright, who beforehand labored for the Biden-Harris presidential transition workforce.

Bannon was a non-public citizen in the course of the revolt, however the Jan. 6 committee sought his testimony as a result of members consider his podcasts might have contributed to radicalizing Trump supporters. The panel additionally stated it has proof of Bannon repeatedly speaking to Trump officers within the lead-up to the Capitol riot.

The contempt case concerned legislative efforts to research the Jan. 6 violence and what led as much as it, slightly than the precise occasions of the day.

Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett and Katie Mettler contributed to this report.