Donald Trump offered limp support for Steve Bannon, his former White House strategist, who was ordered by a judge on Thursday to turn himself in to federal corrections custody and start serving his prison sentence for shunning Congress.
"It would not have mattered whether Steve Bannon, and others, went in front of the Unselect Committee of Criminal Hacks and Thugs, BECAUSE ALL OF THE INFORMATION ENDED UP BEING ILLEGALLY DELETED AND DESTROYED BY THESE CORRUPT RADICALS!"
Bannon, who has been a tireless MAGA soldier leading a legion of supporters with his "War Room" podcast, was convicted of two counts for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 Committee.
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Specifically, he was punished for withholding documents and staying silent while the House Select committee investigated the U.S. Capitol deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bannon made remarks following U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols' decision to have him report to prison on July 1.
"I want to say something specifically about the Justice Department," Bannon bellowed following the hearing. "They're not going to shut up Trump. They're not going to shut up [Peter] Navarro. They're not going to shut up Bannon, and they're certainly not going to shut up MAGA."
"There's nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up. There's not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up."
Trump's claim that the committee, led by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), destroyed critical and possibly exculpatory records in their fact-finding mission has been roundly disproven before they released their final report back on December 2022.
Rep. George Loudermilk (R-GA), who oversaw the GOP-led probe into the panel, raised concerns about a lack of a complete work product including some missing video recordings, transcripts, and information about panel's methods when it looked at the security response to the "Stop the Steal" protest that erupted into an attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“There’s little snippets of stuff all around,” Loudermilk said last year.
Former January 6 Char Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) wrote a letter to Loudermilk.
It read: “Consistent with guidance from the Office of the Clerk and other authorities, the Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative actions."
