Merrick Garland Mum On Whether DOJ Will Charge Steve Bannon If House Contempt Vote Passes

Attorney General Merrick Garland would not hint Thursday whether the Justice Department plans to charge Steve Bannon if a House vote to hold former President Donald Trump's ally in contempt of Congress passes, the Associated Press reported.

Bannon has become the subject of intense outcry and scrutiny since defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection and the former president's role in the attack.

Though the House vote is expected to be successful and the committee has pledged to punish anyone who does not comply with the probe, the Justice Department must decide what comes next. Despite Democrats' calls for action, Garland declined to say what the department would do during a separate House hearing Thursday, AP reported.

"If the House of Representatives votes for a referral of a contempt charge, the Department of Justice will do what it always does in such circumstances. It will apply the facts and the law and make a decision consistent with the principles of prosecution," he said.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

The outcome could determine not only the effectiveness of the House investigation but also the strength of Congress' power to call witnesses and demand information—factors that will certainly be weighing on Justice officials as they determine whether to move forward.

While the department has historically been reluctant to use its prosecution power against witnesses found in contempt of Congress, the circumstances are exceptional as lawmakers investigate the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol in two centuries.

To emphasize the committee's unity in holding Bannon accountable, the panel's Democratic chairman, Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, will lead the debate on the bill along with Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of two Republicans on the committee—a rare show of bipartisanship on the House floor.

Still, most House Republicans are expected to vote against the contempt measure, despite the potential consequences for the institution.

If Congress can't perform its oversight job, the message sent to "the general public is these subpoenas are a joke," said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official.

Democrats are pressuring Justice to take the case, arguing that nothing less than democracy is on the line.

"The stakes are enormous," said Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, a member of the panel. "The Congress of the United States under Article One has the power to investigate in order to inform our deliberations about how to legislate going forward. That's what this is about."

Still, prosecution is not a given. Assuming his post after a turbulent Trump era, Garland has prioritized restoring what he has called "the norms" of the department. On his first day, he told rank-and-file prosecutors that they should be focused on equal justice and not feel pressure to protect the president's allies or to attack his enemies. He has repeatedly said political considerations shouldn't play a role in any decisions.

And his deputies pushed back—hard—when President Joe Biden suggested to reporters last week that Bannon should be prosecuted for contempt.

"The Department of Justice will make its own independent decisions in all prosecutions based solely on the facts and the law. Period. Full stop," Garland's spokesman, Anthony Coley, said Friday, in response to the president's comments.

The January 6 panel voted Tuesday evening to recommend the contempt charges against Bannon, citing reports that he spoke with Trump before the insurrection, promoted the protests that day and predicted there would be unrest. Members said Bannon was alone in completely defying his subpoena, while more than a dozen other witnesses were at least speaking to the panel.

Assuming the full House votes to hold Bannon in contempt Thursday, the matter will be referred to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. It would then be up to prosecutors in that office whether to present the case to a grand jury for possible criminal charges. The office is run by Channing Phillips, an acting U.S. attorney who had previously served in the position in the Obama administration. Another attorney, Matt Graves, has been nominated for the post, but his nomination is pending in the Senate.

The Justice Department has in the past been wary of prosecuting congressional contempt cases, especially when the White House and the House of Representatives are controlled by opposing political parties.

During the Obama administration the department declined to prosecute then-Attorney General Eric Holder and former IRS official Lois Lerner following contempt referrals from the Republican-led House. And George W. Bush's Justice Department declined to charge Harriet Miers after the former White House counsel defied a subpoena in a Democratic investigation into the mass firings of United States attorneys.

In addition, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has said in multiple opinions—including one from the 1980s involving Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch's mother Anne Gorsuch, who refused to turn over documents in her capacity as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency—that the Justice Department has discretion on when to prosecute for contempt, even when receiving a referral from the House.

Still, the Bannon case is different, as Democrats hold Congress and the White House—and because the committee is investigating a violent attack by Trump's supporters who beat law enforcement officers, broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Biden's victory.

Even if the department does decide to prosecute, the case could take years to play out—potentially pushing past the 2022 election when Republicans could win control of the House and end the investigation.

The House could also try another route. A House-authorized civil lawsuit could also take years but force Bannon and any other witnesses to defend themselves in court.

Another option available to Congress would be to try to imprison defiant witnesses—an unlikely, if not outlandish, scenario. Called "inherent contempt," the process was used in the country's early years but hasn't been employed in almost a century.