Nine House Republicans joined the entire Democratic House membership Thursday in a vote to hold former White House strategist Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for supporting Donald Trump’s claim that executive privilege was a matter of executive privilege in Jan. 6 conversations.
This includes two Republicans who didn’t vote to impeach him after he resigned for inciting insurrection in relation to the Jan. 6 riot at Capitol.
The nine House Republicans included Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio, Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., John Katko, R-N.Y., Peter Meijer, R-Mich., Fred Upton, R-Mich., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C.
Fitzpatrick, Mace and Mace didn’t vote to impeach Trump. However, they have generally voted against the party on some votes according To The Hill.
The House GOP leadership was urging Republicans to vote against referring Bannon to the Justice Department for prosecution for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 panel subpoenas for Bannon’s testimony about his personal conversations with the president.
Bannon claimed that Trump invoked executive privilege in private conversations with him, but the Jan.6 committee denied that and said Bannon must testify, as he isn’t entitled to executive privilege.
Trump’s request to invoke executive privilege was also rejected by the committee, claiming that it does not apply because he is not currently president.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (Republican from Louisiana) wrote to The Hill in a notice that the committee was “more interested in pursuing a partisan agenda to politicize Jan. 6’s attack than in conducting a legitimate, good faith investigation into security failures that led up to and after that day.”
