Boris Sanchez: 'Steve Bannon Makes Longshot Request to Supreme Court to Avoid Prison'

Source:CNN talking about convicted felon & soon to be prison inmate Steve Bannon.

"Steve Bannon, a conservative podcast host and former strategist for Donald Trump, asked the Supreme Court to pause his prison sentence while he appeals his conviction for contempt of Congress. Bannon’s former attorney David Schoen weighs in." 

From CNN

"Who can use executive privilege?

Executive privilege must be invoked by the President but can be used to cover the President, Vice President, and other members of the executive branch. Members of the executive branch can include advisors to the President, cabinet members, and perhaps executive agencies.

What are the limitations of executive privilege?

The right to use executive privilege is not absolute. The privilege is qualified and once it is claimed there is a presumption of privilege. Congress or the party in court seeking the documents must show that the material is essential to justice in the case." 

From Constitution Find Law

As my colleague Rik Schneider wrote about this 2 weeks ago: 

"So Steve Bannon's defense here is basically: "President Donald Trump claimed executive privilege on the conversations that I had with him about Jan. 6. That's why I din't comply with the House subpoena to speak in front of their Jan. 6 committee." 

The big problem that he has here (and I'm not a lawyer) and you can see why he keeps losing his appeals, is that Steve Bannon in January, 2021, didn't work for The White House or any part of the Trump Administration. Donald Trump fired him in the summer of 2017. 

Mr. Bannon was just a private citizen during the entire presidential election season of 2020 and the transition period from November, 2020 when Joe Biden was elected President of the United States, defeating President Trump, till the day that President Trump's term expired and Joe Biden becomes President Joe Biden. And the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt happened 2 weeks before Mr. Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, succeeding President Trump." 

From The New Democrat

I think perhaps the other major, character flaw that Donald Trump has, other than being a dictatorial narcissist who believes that he's above the law, is that he had a bad habit of talking about illegal acts and perhaps committing illegal acts, or having people commit illegal acts for him, with people who didn't actually work for him. Meaning people who don't have executive privilege. And that's probably because most of the people he hired as President of the United States, weren't willing to go to prison for him. I guess Peter Navarro is the exception to that.

Once again, I'm not a lawyer, but if you look at the Steve Bannon case here, that's why he keeps losing. He was subpoenaed by the U.S. House of Representatives to testify in front of the January 6 Committee and refused to even show up. As former Trump White House advisor Sarah Matthews told CNN a couple weeks ago, had he just shown up and plead the 5th to everything that they asked him, he's not looking at prison right now. 

His case has 2 weaknesses: 

He was a private citizen when the conversations that he had with President Trump happened, that the House was interested in. 

And executive privilege doesn't apply to criminal acts. The House wasn't interested in what Mr. Bannon was telling the President about economic policy or anything else relating to government policy. But their discussions relating to their attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. He has no privilege here. 

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