Federal prosecutors prosecuting Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress admitted on Wednesday they did not seek higher approval from the Justice Department before spying on Steve Bannon’s lawyer.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Justice Department to release internal documents related to their decision to prosecute Bannon, a victory for the former Trump adviser.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols appeared to be concerned about the unusual move, repeatedly asking prosecutors why they felt it was appropriate to covertly collect records of personal phone calls, text messages and emails from defense attorney Robert Costello.
Nichols also said Bannon’s team should come up with “statements or letters” from the Justice Department that justify the decision to charge him with contempt of Congress, given the longstanding precedent that former presidential advisers cannot be subpoenaed.
Amanda Vaughn, the chief prosecutor in the case, told the court that her team “never inquired about the content of any messages,” instead the Justice Department looked for “toll road records” to find out who Costello called or texted and when.
Vaughn did not explicitly state why the Justice Department took such a step, which would have violated the protection of lawyer-client privileges, but hinted that they wanted to make sure Bannon relied on his lawyer’s advice when he refused to testify before the committee on January 6 in October. .
Banno’s lawyers argued that he did not fall under the definition of “deliberate” contempt because he relied on their advice, but Nichols did not seem to buy into that argument anyway.
Released opinions from the White House Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) say senior presidential advisers are “completely immune” to compulsion to testify by Congress, which is why Bannon’s lawyers say they advised their client not to testify. But prosecutors argued that the OLC’s findings, which have no legal force, were irrelevant to the contempt of Congress charges.
Documents provided by the Justice Department may shed light on what excuse they used to go against the executive’s own directives, or what non-public legal directives they used to prosecute Bannon for ignoring a subpoena.
Bannon told reporters that his case has “nothing to do” with Jan. 6 and his focus is on bringing down President Biden.
“It’s important to my job to bring down the illegal regime of the Biden administration, and I do it every day,” the former White House chief strategist told reporters outside a Washington courthouse on Wednesday.
Nichols, appointed by Trump, noted the dichotomy between the department’s domestic policies and its prosecutorial decisions. “These two positions will be held simultaneously,” he said.
Prosecutors in court admitted that they went to the telecommunications companies to demand Costello’s records, which does not require top-level approval from the DOJ, instead of requesting them from Costello himself, which would require more scrutiny by the DOJ.
Bannon’s other lawyers, Evan Corcoran and David Sean, were shocked.
“This is… absurd at first glance. There is a special relationship between a lawyer and his client,” Sean told the judge. “I hope the Inspector General sees things differently.”
What were they going to tell from the notes? They knew he was talking [with Bannon,]Sean added. “I think what happened is outrageous.”
The judge said he understands that Bannon’s team could push for investigators to be reprimanded or referred to a supervisory agency, but so far has abstained.
“The behavior of the FBI and, quite frankly, the Department of Justice has been outrageous with respect to my attorney and attorney-client privilege,” Bannon said in front of the courtroom on Wednesday afternoon.
The government has gained access to the phone and email records of lawyer Robert Costello, according to a new court document.
“Everything that was in the background of this, everything that came to the grand jury. Everything has to come out,” Bannon said.
Bannon, meanwhile, said his case has “nothing to do” with Jan. 6 and his focus is on bringing down President Biden.
“It’s important to my job to bring down the illegal regime of the Biden administration, and I do it every day,” the former White House chief strategist told reporters on Wednesday outside a courthouse in Washington, DC. “I don’t consider them legal. I have stated this many times. I think the November 3rd election was stolen and I publicly campaigned for it day after day.”
In November, Bannon pleaded not guilty to the charge of contempt of court and vowed to turn the case into “a hell of a misdemeanor for Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.”
The case took a shocking turn when Bannon’s lawyers reported in February that the FBI was secretly spying on Bannon’s lawyer, believing they had found a way to blow the case.
Lawyers said they learned from the new explosive documents about efforts to obtain Costello’s phone and electronic records when the government filed 790 documents in the case against Bannon, part of the normal production of documents in a criminal case.
The snooping, in the form of a grand jury subpoena, occurred while Costello was meeting with prosecutors “in his capacity as counsel for Mr. Bannon, which he believes was a good-faith discussion prior to the indictment” — and without any indication of “evil spirits.” “. command to check confidential information.
Bannon’s lawyers criticized the information gathering as “outrageous and inappropriate behavior by the government” and demanded more information from the feds, including providing the subpoena used to obtain the information and revealing who in the main Department of Justice signed off on the event, which apparently no one did not.