Judge Smacks Down Steve Bannon's Legal Defense Before Trial Even Begins

Steve Bannon's trial is set to begin today with jury selection, but don't expect Bannon to be able to put up much of a fight. The judge in the case has basically thrown out all of the legal defenses that Bannon's lawyers have offered, at one point causing the lawyers to even question why they're doing a trial if they can't defend their client - the judge also wanted to know why. Farron Cousins explains why this won't end well for Bannon, no matter what happens.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Well folks, the contempt trial for Steve Bannon starts today with jury selection and legal experts are already looking at this saying that this is basically going to be a prolonged, guilty plea by Steve Bannon. And the reason they're saying that of course is because the judge in the case has already smacked down all of Bannon's lawyers, legal defenses before the trial has even begun. In fact, in a, a recent motion where the judge smacked down yet, another defense, uh, Bannon's lawyers asked quote, what's the point of going to trial? If there are no defenses to which the judge responded agreed. So even the judge is sitting there wondering, why are we doing this? Why are we even having a trial? Because there is no defense for you defying this subpoena from the January 6th committee. In fact, the judge says the only possible defense that you could have is that you misunderstood, you know, deadlines or what they were specifically asking you for that, that is literally the only defense you could have for defying the subpoena.

That that's what the judge has told them. Okay? That is not speculation. The judge says, look, the only possible way you can get out of this is if you convince me that you didn't know what the hell was going on, but what Bannon's lawyers have of course tried to argue before the judge, which again, he smacked down every time is that no, no, no, no. Bannon's covered by executive privilege here cuz Trump, uh, exerted executive privilege over the communication. So therefore Bannon doesn't have to turn anything over. And of course, you know, the judges said, well, here's the thing, Trump. Didn't not only did he not exert executive privilege over Steve Bannon. There's several problems with that argument. Even if he had exerted executive privilege, which again, he didn't, first of all, Bannon, wasn't a member of the administration. So he would not under any circumstances actually be covered under executive privilege like that.

Wouldn't apply to him. Even if Trump had put executive privilege out there on the table. Secondly, Trump's the former president. He no longer has authority to issue executive privilege over anything that authority rests with Biden and Biden alone and Biden of course has said, Hey, we're not exerting executive privilege over anything. You can, you get what you get, go for it. We don't care. So even if Trump had it wouldn't even stand because Biden has already technically undone it and it wouldn't have covered Bannon in the first place, cuz he wasn't a part of the actual administration at the time. So yeah, that of course is why the judge has already come forward and said, you're not gonna come into my court and argue this, right? This isn't a thing that's going to happen. We're not gonna sit here and listen to all of this nonsense.

Bannon recently pledged this on his podcast. He said pray for our enemies because we're going mid evil on these people. We're going to Savage our enemies who needs prayers. Certainly not Stephen Kay. Bannon. It kind of seems like you need a prayer because you have no legal defense cuz you're not gonna be able to walk into that court and tell them like, oh, I'm, I'm a moron. I didn't understand the, the timelines and the deadlines and you know the requests and all that. Eh, jury's not gonna buy that. So what's gonna happen to Steve Bannon. If he is eventually found guilty. Well there's technically two options here. One, he works out a plea deal, which of course is what the judge is. Kind of steering it towards. Like that's why the judge is already smacking down these legal arguments before the, the uh, uh, trial actually starts. He's trying to get them look except that you're gonna lose let's work at a plea deal. So Bannon can, can turn his stuff over. We don't have to go through this trial. We don't have to put on this show. We all know he did it. We all know he was competent enough to know he was doing it. Let's just do this. And everybody moves on with their lives.