Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, suffered heavy setbacks in his contempt of Congress case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed his motion to delay his trial, scheduled for next week, and ruled he could not make two of his principal defences to a jury.
The flurry of adverse rulings from District of Columbia district judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – marked a significant knock back for Bannon, who was charged with criminal contempt after he ignored a subpoena last year from the House January 6 select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters in 2021.
Nichols refused in federal court in Washington DC to delay Bannon’s trial date, set for next Monday, saying that he saw no reason to push back proceedings after he severely limited the defences that the former Trump aide’s lawyers could present to a jury.
The defeats for Bannon stunned his lead lawyer, David Schoen, who asked, aghast: “What’s the point of going to trial if we don’t have any defences?”
Nichols stripped Bannon of two of his main defences for defying the select committee’s subpoena, ruling he could not present evidence to the jury that he had relied on the advice of counsel, and could not rely on entrapment by estoppel, the argument that a defendant was advised erroneously by an official that certain conduct was legal.
The decision, Nichols said, came in large part because he was bound by the controlling case law at the DC circuit level, which ruled in Licavoli v United States 1961, that advice of counsel was no defence against contempt of Congress charges.
