Steve Bannon Surrenders To Feds After Being Indicted For Contempt Of Congress

Former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon surrendered to the FBI on Monday after being indicted on contempt of Congress due to his refusal to cooperate with the congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot.

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted Bannon on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Bannon’s indictment reflected the Justice Department’s “steadfast commitment” to showing the American people “by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law.”

Bannon is set to appear before a judge in Washington later Monday. Cameras caught Bannon arriving at the FBI’s Washington Field Office on Monday morning. 

As alleged in the indictment , Bannon did not comply with subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack before the required deadlines last month. The committee was interested in Bannon because he was “present at the Willard Hotel on January 5, 2021, during an effort to persuade Members of Congress to block the certification of the election the next day” and proclaimed, the day before the attack, that “all hell is going to break loose.”

This is not Bannon’s first run-in with federal prosecutors. In 2019, Bannon testified during the trial of Roger Stone, saying that Donald Trump ’s 2016 campaign saw Stone as an “access point” to WikiLeaks. And in August 2020, Bannon was indicted  in connection with a scheme to fleece Trump supporters who wanted to build a border wall. In his final hours in office in January, Trump pardoned Bannon , and had previously pardoned Stone in December 2020, just a few weeks before the Jan. 6 attack. Stone was staying at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, where the “war room” of high-level Trump supporters was set up.  

The FBI has made more than 650 arrests in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and hundreds more arrests are in the works . While the FBI investigations will answer a lot of questions about individual criminal culpability in the Jan. 6 attacks, it will be up to the House select committee to answer some of the broader questions about what happened that day.

House Select Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said that Bannon’s indictment “should send a clear message to anyone who thinks they can ignore the Select Committee or try to stonewall our investigation: no one is above the law.” Thompson and Cheney said they would “not hesitate to use the tools at our disposal to get the information we need.”

Read the Bannon indictment below.