The far-right Steve Bannon, an ally of former US President Donald Trump, turned himself in on Monday at the Washington FBI office after being charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena from the legislative committee investigating the assault on the Capitol last January.
Bannon, 67, is facing one charge for his refusal to appear before the committee, while the second is for refusing to deliver documents.
An indictment for contempt of Congress can carry between 30 days and a year in prison, as well as a fine of between $ 100 and $ 1,000.
The formal indictment came last Friday after the US House of Representatives declared Bannon in contempt on October 21 for refusing to appear before the investigative committee of the assault on the Capitol on January 6 by a mob of Trump supporters.
Said declaration passed to the Department of Justice, which had to decide whether to proceed with the process.
During this time, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been the target of all kinds of political pressure to indict Bannon through the courts after the decision of Congress.
The prosecutor for the District of Columbia, Matthew M. Graves, recalled in the subpoena that he considers that the former president’s advisor has relevant information about what happened.
A criminal case against Bannon could take years to be resolved in court and, according to the CNN television network, these types of cases for contempt of Congress have historically been disproved by juries sympathetic to the accused and by appeals.
On January 6, five people died and about 140 agents were attacked by pro-Trump protesters, who stormed the Capitol armed with axes, bats, and hockey sticks, among other objects, according to data from the authorities.
The assault came after a rally in which Trump refused to accept his defeat in the November elections and urged his followers to march towards the headquarters of Congress, where legislators were gathered to certify the electoral victory of the current president, Joe Biden, who arrived at the White House on January 20.