Bannon post verdict
Steve Bannon bemoaned publicity around House January 6 committee hearings as he tried to delay his trial.Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
  • During the trial, prosecutors made sure the judge knew about the press conferences.

  • The hearings on January 6 were called a show trial by Bannon.

  • The prosecutors' filing seemed to undermine a part of the appeal.

As his trial on criminal contempt of Congress charges drew near, Steve Bannon tried to stave off the high-profile proceeding by pointing to the publicity surrounding the congressional panel he stood accused of ignoring.

His lawyers argued that the House committee's series of public hearings and a CNN documentary caused an atmosphere that jeopardized the fairness of the trial. After a jury found him guilty on Friday, his defense lawyers notified the court of the House committee's mention of him the night before during a prime time hearing.

There was a problem with the notice that was sent to the judge, because it didn't mention how the Trump ally "himself generated publicity not only in the build up to trial but during the closely-watch weeklong proceeding."

In a three-page court filing, federal prosecutors called out Bannon for holding daily press conferences outside of court. Even as his lawyers argued that the hourlong show needed to be delayed, prosecutors noted that he personally promoted a CNN documentary about him.

Three days before jury selection began, an advertisement for CNN was posted to the Gettr page of the War Room, according to prosecutors.

On the day of the documentary's airing, the Gettr account reposted an advertisement for CNN.

Outside the court Friday, he and his lawyers promised to appeal. Their notice of the House January 6 committee's latest hearing was filed as part of an effort to preserve issues for that appeal, which is expected to address whether Nichols should have granted a delay in light of the publicity around the inquiry into the Capitol attack.

The Justice Department's filing on Thursday appeared to try to downplay that part of the appeal.

In the weeks leading up to the trial, Nichols made a number of rulings that prevented Bannon from raising a lot of arguments. He was not allowed to argue that executive privilege excused his defiance or that he was merely ignoring his lawyer's advice when he refused to comply with a subpoena.

After months of stonewalling, Bannon was allowed to raise his offer earlier this month to testify before the House. The reversal was attributed to a letter he received from Trump purporting to waive executive privilege, which legal experts widely viewed as not applying to him, because he was years removed from his role as White House chief strategist.

The prosecutors noted in their court filing that Bannon urged his audience to pray for his enemies because "we're going medieval on these people." After each day of trial proceedings, prosecutors gave Nichols a brief highlight reel from the daily press conferences of Bannon.

The hearings of the House January 6 committee were called a show trial.

According to prosecutors, on July 19th, Bannon complained that the committee chair was not testifying in his trial, referred to another member of the committee and another member of congress by derogatory names, and accused the committee of not investigating January 6 in good faith.

He referred to the Committee's work as a "show trial," prosecutors said.

They said that on July 21st, Bannon addressed legal issues in the case. "In addition," prosecutors said, "theDefendant again reiterated his public statement that had been entered into evidence the previous day: 'I stand with Trump and the Constitution.'

The court is expected to sentence Bannon on October 21.

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