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 backing Donald Trump's claim of executive privilege on Jan. 6 conversations.
That includes two Republicans who did not vote to impeach the former president after he left office for alleged incitement of insurrection in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
The nine House Republicans are 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 and Mace did not vote to impeach Trump, but they have generally broken from 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 cited Trump's invoking executive privilege on private conversations with the president, but the Jan. 6 committee rejected that, saying Bannon had to testify because he is not entitled to executive privilege.
The committee has also refused Trump's invoking executive privilege, saying that it no longer applies as he is not the sitting president.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., wrote in a notice to The Hill that the committee "is more interested in pursuing a partisan agenda to politicize the Jan. 6 attack rather than conducting a legitimate good faith investigation into the security failures leading up to and on that day."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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