Republicans aren’t solely sacrificing their dignity to attempt to hold Donald Trump out of jail—they’re additionally going to bat for his embattled adviser. Home Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday confirmed that he would again Steve Bannon’s effort to enchantment his conviction to the Supreme Court docket, because the MAGA strategist tries to keep away from reporting to jail on July 1 for defying a January 6 committee’s subpoena. “We’ve been investigating the committee itself,” Johnson said on Fox Information, baselessly suggesting the bipartisan panel was “wrongfully constituted” and engaged in unnamed “nefarious actions” in investigating 2021’s pro-Trump assault on the Capitol. “We expect it violated Home guidelines,” Johnson added. “We’ll be expressing that to the court docket, and I believe it is going to assist Steve Bannon in his enchantment.”
The announcement got here as Johnson and different Home Republicans in a closed-door vote formally determined to “withdraw” the earlier Congress’s assist for the committee and file an amicus transient on Bannon’s behalf. It’s unclear if the hassle will change Bannon’s destiny, which could possibly be determined by Chief Justice John Roberts as quickly as Wednesday; the amicus transient, as Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported, is not going to are available in by the excessive court docket’s deadline. However Bannon cheered the transfer by Johnson, the speaker he derided simply months in the past as a “revolting loser” for replenishing overseas support to Ukraine.
“Speaker Johnson and Home management confirmed large braveness in repudiating the illegally constituted J6 Committee and its actions/investigations,” the previous White Home strategist said in a textual content to Axios.
In fact, there was nothing “unlawful” or “nefarious” concerning the structure of the January 6 committee or the investigation it undertook. The inquiry, led by Democrat Bennie Thompson and Republican Liz Cheney, gave the general public a radical accounting of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and its violent denouement on January 6, 2021, as lawmakers convened to certify Joe Biden’s victory. Johnson—who helped lead the disgraceful push by congressional Republicans to dam that certification—is looking for to rewrite that historical past, suggesting that the true crime was not dedicated by these looking for to subvert the democratic course of however those that sought to uphold it.
Johnson and the opposite 146 elected Republicans who participated in Trump’s assault on democracy have an apparent private curiosity in smearing the committee that shone a light-weight on their culpability. However there’s something notably pathetic of their doing so for the sake of Bannon, whose delinquency and depravity are maybe solely exceeded by the demagogue he serves. The GOP is asking the Supreme Court docket to spare Trump from jail time, too, after he was convicted on 34 felony expenses final month—and are hoping that the conservative supermajority, which incorporates three justices the previous president appointed, will indulge his outrageous “immunity” claims and additional undermine the felony case Jack Smith introduced towards Trump over his makes an attempt to steal the 2020 election.
Trump’s fortunes are prone to be higher than these of Bannon, who will in all probability need to report back to jail subsequent week as deliberate unless Roberts has a surprise in store. However even when the GOP’s assist doesn’t cease his four-month sentence, it may assist “flood the zone with shit”—as Bannon himself would say—whereas the MAGA proper seeks to painting accountability as political persecution.