As CNN had reported, Steve Bannon has decided not to cooperate with the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. His deadline for appearing before the Committee to testify has come and gone. An email from his lawyer apparently cited Disgraced Former President Donald Trump’s claim of Executive Privilege as a reason for Bannon to thumb his nose at the Committee. This is a peculiar position to take, since Bannon was not in Trump’s Administration on January 5-6, 2021, so his testimony and documentary revelations on his interactions with Trump in that timeframe do not implicate a President’s ability to confer with his top aides in confidence.

Trump’s attorneys also told his co-conspirators that Trump was claiming attorney-client privilege. But Bannon isn’t an attorney, much less Trump’s attorney, and if he were in a meeting with Trump and any of his attorneys, that broke the privilege for Trump! Oops!

Bannon’s lawyer claimed, “the executive privileges belong to President Trump” and “we must accept his direction and honor his invocation of executive privilege.” False. The privileges belong to the Executive Branch, of which Trump is no longer a part, despite his delusions to the contrary. President Biden has already determined that he will not assert Executive Privilege over the first wave of Committee requests.

Remember how Presidents asserting Executive Privilege always claim that they are not trying to shield themselves from embarrassment or criminal liability by hiding their communications, but are nobly thinking of protecting the prerogatives of “future Presidents”? Well, with respect to former President Trump, Biden is one of those future Presidents, and as the current President, he has decided that Trump’s assertion is malarkey.

Bannon’s lawyer’s claim that “Mr. Bannon is legally unable to comply with your subpoena requests for documents and testimony” is total BS. Trump has no legal authority over Bannon, who can comply if he wants. As Bill Palmer of the Palmer Report has pointed out, however, Bannon is between a rock and a hard place, as he is the subject of other criminal probes that may be facilitated if he provides testimony and documents to the Committee. Thus, his dilemma: face penalties for non-compliance or face potentially graver penalties for revealing his involvement in serious misconduct.

So Bannon apparently feels that his best play is to run out the clock, like Trump’s minions did in prior investigations, by waiting for the resolution of court cases on whether they can be compelled to provide evidence and testimony.  That’s why former Trump counsel Don McGahn didn’t testify before a Congressional Committee until 2 years after he was subpoenaed to do so. And one of the reasons why John Bolton never testified at Trump’s first impeachment trial (along with Republican Senators’ craven partisanship and Bolton’s “let-me-cash-in-by-saving-it-for-my-book” approach).

The January 6^th Committee shouldn’t fall into the legal labyrinth Bannon would like to lead them into, by asking nicely for DOJ and a court to enforce its authority and hoping for a favorable result at the end of a lengthy legal process.  Instead, the Committee should use the House’s inherent contempt authority, and have the Sergeant-at-Arms take Bannon into custody and hold him in a cell until it all plays out. If Bannon wants a long, drawn-out process, let him endure it away from the comforts of home, without being able to conduct his podcast that provides a platform for his seditionist comrades, and without any publicity.  Let’s see how committed to the cause he is then.