The January 6 Congressional hearings wrapped up with another prime time session last night.
And while we hesitate to use Hollywood language to describe real world events, we have to say — it was one hell of a season finale!
In addition to another round of revelations about Donald Trump’s role in last year’s riots at the Capitol Building, this week found one of the former president’s most infamous cronies on the receiving end of some very bad news.
On Friday, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was found guilty on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for failing to answer to a subpoena from the January 6 committee.
Each count carries a minimum sentence of 30 days in prison, and Bannon could be locked up for as long as two years.
The chronically disheveled firebrand became the face of some of the most problematic factions of the MAGA crowd during Trump’s time in office.
Branded a white nationalist by some, Bannon is widely considered to be one of the main architects of the formation of the platform that helped to make candidate Trump so shockingly successful in 2016.
And the news that the ex-president’s right hand man might soon be locked up has likely struck fear in the hearts of Trump and the members of his dwindling inner circle.
“We may have lost the battle here today, but we haven’t lost the war,” Bannon told reporters outside the courthouse after the jury returned with a guilty verdict after less than three hours of deliberation.
The 68-year-old is set to be sentenced on October 21, and he’s vowed to appeal the verdict.
Trump, of course, also ignores every subpoena that comes his way, but that’s the least of his problems these days.
On Thursday night, the Congressional committee continued to make a compelling case for the argument that Trump was more than just criminally negligent when he went silent for 187 minutes during the riots — he was criminally complicit.
Particularly damning were outtakes from the video message to the nation that Trump recorded the following day.
“This election is now over. Congress has certified the results,” Trump said at one point before retracting the statement.
“I don’t want to say the election is over. I want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, OK?”
It’s the goal of the committee to prove that Trump knew he had lost the White House to Joe Biden, but continued to sell his supporters a false narrative about a stolen election in the hope of inciting an insurrection.
In addition to the January 6 committee, Trump is being investigated by New York Attorney General Letitia James in connection with fraud allegations stemming from his family’s business practices.
Depositions in that case were supposed to begin today, but were delayed by the death of Trump’s first wife, Ivana.
When the mysterious death of your former spouse is a good thing for you from a legal perspective, you know you’ve entered some seriously shady territory.
But don’t worry, your weirdest uncle will still be defending the guy at Thanksgiving.
MAGA Nation is nothing if not loyal.