Consider This from NPR - Former President Donald Trump Subpoenaed by House January 6 Committee

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

The House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot has subpoenaed former President Donald Trump for testimony under oath and records. We speak with Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor who was involved in the Watergate case, about what's at stake for both Congress and the former president.Plus, NPR's Carrie Johnson reports that Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon has now been sentenced to four months in prison for defying his own subpoena from the January 6 committee.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. From the beginning, the House January 6th Committee has made it very clear who it believes is most responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy. And ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy.

That is Chairman Benny Thompson, a Democrat, speaking at the committee's first public hearing this summer. Through hours of public testimony, the investigators crept inside the former president's inner circle, putting questions to his former attorney general, Bill Barr. I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit. And, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it. His vice president's chief counsel, Greg Jacob. Mr. Jacob, did Donald Trump ever call the vice president to check on his safety? He did not.

Mr. Jacob, how did Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence react to that? With frustration. And White House staffers like Cassidy Hutchinson, who were around the president throughout January 6th, beginning with his speech to supporters on the Ellipse in front of the White House. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't even care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Now they want the man himself to appear before the committee. Committee Resolution 1 resolved that the chairman be and is hereby directed to subpoena Donald J. Trump for documents and testimony in connection with the January 6th attack on the United States

Capitol. Last week, they voted unanimously to compel the former president to answer questions under oath. Friday, they made that official, formally issuing a subpoena, giving Trump until November 14th to appear before the panel. Consider this. The January 6th committee says former President Trump is responsible for the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Now they're setting up a potential constitutional showdown in their effort to get him to talk. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Friday, October 21st. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Since the January 6th panel voted to subpoena Donald Trump last week, expectations that the former president will actually comply anytime soon have been low to nonexistent. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the House committee, says dozens of witnesses have already invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testimony in their probe. Now Trump has been officially subpoenaed. So what's at stake and what are the possibilities? I spoke about that with Nick Ackerman, a former federal prosecutor who was involved in the Watergate case. I first asked him, what avenues does former President Trump have to respond to the subpoena if Trump wanted to legally avoid testifying or legally avoid turning over any more documents. Well, I think the one thing he could do if he just wanted to do it legally without incurring any kind of liability was simply the letter that's sent to him

says to him that if he intends to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege, meaning that if you were to answer questions truthfully, it would tend to incriminate him that he should so notify the committee, and it would seem to me upon that notification, he would probably be excused for attending personally. That would be the proper way to do it if he's trying to get away from having to testify at all. What about if he's trying to get away from turning over any more documents? Well, even the documents, I think he would still take the Fifth Amendment on. He could do that. Unless, of course, you know, these are government documents. Now, it could very well be that many

of the documents that are called for here might be in those documents that were seized by the FBI in that raid on Mar-a-Lago. We don't know, but one has to wonder. Right. Now, what would be the consequences if Trump doesn't comply with the subpoena whatsoever and doesn't invoke the fifth, as you just explained? Isn't it a crime to defy a congressional subpoena? Oh, it is.

Look what happened to Steve Bannon today. I mean, he's going to serve time in jail as a result. But the other consequences are he can be held in contempt. There's two avenues there. One is to go through the court system, which is not really a viable option now. If it turns out that the Republicans take the House in the upcoming midterm elections. The committee will be disbanded, and any effort in court to try and enforce that subpoena will also kind of disappear at that point. The one option that they do have is that the House itself, Congress, has the inherent power to basically enforce a contempt. And it's been held by the Supreme Court.

It's been upheld. It was last done, I think, in the Teapot Dome scandal. And they could send the sergeant of arms to Trump, arrest him, bring him into the committee room, sit him down on the chair. And at that point, the committee could start questioning. Okay. Well, for a moment, let's inhabit this world where Trump actually does testify and actually does turn over more documents. Can you lay out explicitly what does he risk there? Well, first of all, anything he says will be used against him. He's going to be creating a transcript and statement under oath.

And if he lies, he can be charged for perjury. So if I were his defense lawyer, I would strongly urge him not to testify because what he's going to wind up doing is getting himself in more trouble than he is now. I mean, this is what happened to most of the major defendants in the Watergate scandal. They wound up going into the Senate Select Committee that was investigating the Watergate break-in, and they lied. And then they were indicted for obstructing justice with respect to the investigation itself into the Watergate, but they were also charged with lying before Congress and charged with perjury. So that is the biggest risk he has here for testifying. Well, can I just ask you, because you mentioned Watergate, I mean, you lived through and helped prosecute one of the most famous presidential scandals in history. And I just wonder,

as you're taking in all that's unfolded with the January 6th investigation, how does it compare to Watergate in your mind personally? Well, in a lot of ways, this has gone way beyond Watergate. I mean, Watergate, although it wasn't narrow, it involved a break-in to the Democratic National Committee. It was very serious. I was basically trying to undermine an election again. And it was being orchestrated by the president of the United States. Here with Donald Trump, I mean, if you just compare the January 6th insurrection,

I mean, the idea that a president would actually try and, you know, keep himself in power and stop the peaceful transfer of power through force and through violence is, you know, pretty incomparable to anything that happened in Watergate. That was attorney and former federal prosecutor Nick Ackerman. Donald Trump's subpoena isn't the only January 6th-related development making news today. Trump's former advisor, Steve Bannon, was sentenced to prison for four months by a federal judge for defying his own congressional subpoena. He'll get a chance to appeal his conviction. Bannon's lawyer, David Schoen, addressed reporters outside of the courthouse.

It's an extraordinary move to permit a stay pending appeal. It was the appropriate move. I spoke with NPR's Carrie Johnson, who's been reporting on the case, and she reminded us why the January 6th committee wanted information from Bannon in the first place. The House panel says it thinks Bannon might have known a lot more about the planning for January 6th. Lawmakers pointed out a day before the assault on the Capitol, Steve Bannon said, all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. And Bannon also participated in meetings at the War Room at the Willard Hotel before the mob stormed the Capitol on January 6th. And even before the 2020 election, Bannon was talking about how former President Donald Trump might

refuse to recognize the results. Well, let me ask you, because four months is a bit shorter than what prosecutors were asking for, right? Like, how did the judge arrive at this sentence? Was there an explanation? Yeah, prosecutors were asking for six months, and Bannon wanted probation, but that was a no-go for this judge. Judge Carl Nichols found the defiance of Congress was quite serious and that lawmakers have every reason to investigate what happened on January 6th. But he also said Bannon may have gotten legal advice that was overly aggressive or misguided. And that issue, whether Bannon relied on his lawyer and whether a jury should have heard that evidence, will be at the heart of Bannon's appeal. The judge is allowing Bannon to remain free pending appeal, and he imposed a fine of $6,500 for Steve Bannon. Well, I know that you've been at the courthouse.

What was the atmosphere like in the courtroom? You know, Steve Bannon does a lot of talking outside court, but he said nothing to the judge today. This case was all about whether Bannon flouted the Congress, flouted the subpoena from Congress, and deflected by attacking his political enemies and the justice system. Now, that's exactly what his lawyer did in court. The lawyer said the January 6th committee had a partisan political agenda, and he said Bannon had no remorse for his actions. In fact, lawyer David Schoen said Bannon's contempt of Congress could have been a lot worse. But on the other hand, the prosecutor in this case, J.P. Cooney, said Bannon fabricated excuses like bad legal advice and bogus claims of executive privilege, which he said didn't apply to Bannon since Trump never formally asserted the privilege and Bannon hadn't worked in the White House for years. This prosecutor said no one's above the law, and he wanted the judge to deliver that message to other people, too.

So I'm wondering, what do you think, Carrie? Like, what kinds of implications could this sentence have for other people facing charges at the moment? Well, if an appeals court eventually buys Bannon's argument, that could have a broader impact on the ability of Congress to enforce its subpoenas. But even before this appeal gets underway, we have another case of contempt of Congress right in this courthouse. Next month, former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro is going to trial on charges that he blew off the January 6th committee, too. So we'll see what happens there in the coming weeks. That was NPR's Carrie Johnson reporting. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Elsa Chang. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.

Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at Carnegie.org.