Because the committee has opted for criminal referral, it appears the process will be the usual criminal procedure:
The House makes a criminal referral.
The DOJ convenes a grand jury and makes the case.
A grand jury returns an indictment.
The defendant is arraigned. . .
As explained by @BarbMcQuade, a civil remedy would be quicker, with the goal of securing compliance (he could have been jailed until he complied)
This takes longer, but the goal is to punish, not secure compliance.
I am not sure why people feel that they're fighting the clock with Bannon's testimony.
Likely the committee doesn't even need his testimony, and they can draw inferences from his silence. They probably have copies of whatever documents he has . . .
Do people have the idea that unless Bannon talks, the committee can't move forward?
It's an Twitter-invented emergency. The committee is basically done with Bannon. I didn't check the law Schiff quoted, but they're confidence the case will be put before a grand jury. . .
As far as Bannon's defense, he's entitled to put one on, but his defense is totally lame. It's a slam-dunk in the guilty department.
Another Twitter-invented emergency is that the future of democracy depends on whether Bannon testifies . . .
. . . he'd lie anyway, or refuse to answer questions on whatever grounds he'd think up, and getting someone on "lying to congress" is a lot more complicated than prosecuting him for blowing the whole thing off in the first place.
The future of democracy depends on us.
If he isn't talking because he thinks his testimony will incriminate him in another matter, the procedure is that he shows up and then invokes the Fifth Amendment and refuses to answer questions that will incriminate him.
That's why I suspect at this point that he wants a trial so he can put on, as his "defense" that Trump is the rightful president and can assert executive privilege or some such nonsense.
Trials make good theater, and criminal defendants have a constitutional right to a trial.
A person has a constitutional right to a public trial.
People who shout "Why isn't Trump already in prison!" forget that first he gets a public trial.
It. Will. Be. A. Circus.
(Also, he'll be seen as a victim in the Court of Right-Wing Opinion.)
There have been lots of "consequences," but people still say "there have been no consequences."
When I start listing the consequences (which gets tiring) the answer is, "Okay, yes, those, but . . ." or "Okay, he spent some time in jail, but . . . "
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The prosecution has everyone confused because they are framing the case as "election fraud" and "election interference" so everyone is trying to connect the crimes we know about to "election fraud."
This would be clear: "It is election fraud. Here is how the evidence will support a charge of election fraud." Then show how the behavior supports election fraud.
For years I was perplexed by what I was seeing on left-leaning Twitter, political blogs, and partisan reporting.
I had the feeling that, in its way, what I was seeing was comparable to Fox: Lots of bad information and even unhinged conspiracy theories.
2terikanefield.com/invented-narra…
Of course, if I suggested that, I was blasted for "both-sidesing."
Then I discovered an area of scholarship: Communications and the overlap between communications and political science.
Another contradiction: when people demanded indictments RIGHT NOW (in 2021 and early 2022) the reason was, "Everyone knows he's guilty! Look at all the evidence!"
We saw the J6 committee findings.
Trump isn't saying "I didn't do it." He's saying, "I had the right to do it."
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We all know what he did. The question is, "Do people want a president who acts like Trump?"
A lot of people do.
People show me polls that a guilty finding would change minds.
I say rubbish. Use common sense. He lost in 2020 and he lost the popular vote in 2016. . .
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. . . because it is designed to keep people hooked. People need to stay glued to the screen for hour after hour.
But to hook people, you need to scare them. The Facebook whistleblower testified that content that produces strong emotions like anger gets more engagement.
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Fox does the same thing. There is a few minutes of news, but the facts get lost as commentators and TV personalities speculate and scare their audiences.
Before you yell at me for comparing MSNBC to FOX, read all of this:
If I write another blog post addressing the outrage cycle here on Twitter and in the MSNBC ecosystem, it will be to explore why so many people who believe they are liberal or progressive actually want a police state.
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Today alone, a handful of people who consider themselves liberal or progressive told me that the "traitors need to be arrested and prosecuted."
In 2019, back when I wore myself out tamping down misinformation, I explained the legal meaning of treason.
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Back then, I now realize, people asked politely: "Can Trump be prosecuted for treason (over the Russia election stuff).
I explained that wouldn't happen.
Now it's different. It's more like fascist chants.
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