Steve Bannon is charged with a crime about a subpoena from the January 6 committee. Remember when former AG Eric Holder refused to comply with a subpoena from Congress and nothing happened?

The action by the House against Holder came out of the committee’s investigation of the “Fast and Furious” executive branch program during the administration of president Barack Obama, involving firearms being sent to Mexico by “gun-walking”. Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent, was shot and killed, and two of the guns were at the scene of his murder. The committee’s report is 270 pages in the pdf computer format, and is also available in plain text [3]–

http://www.congress.gov/112/crpt/hrpt546/CRPT-112hrpt546.pdf

The report resulted in the entire House passing two resolutions, one of which, H.Res. 711, used Title 2, U.S. Code, section 192, which is the same section being used against Bannon [4]–

http://www.congress.gov/112/bills/hres711/BILLS-112hres711eh.pdf

The other resolution was H.Res.706, which authorized filing a case in federal court that would be like a civil contempt of court action [5]–

http://www.congress.gov/112/bills/hres706/BILLS-112hres706eh.pdf

The United States Attorney for the District of Columbia did not charge former AG Eric Holder with the crime under section 192 of Title 2, even though the House complied with section 194.

Notice the wording of section 194, established by Congress in the years 1936 and 1938–

“Whenever a witness summoned as mentioned in section 192 of this title fails to appear to testify or fails to produce any books, papers, records, or documents, as required, or whenever any witness so summoned refuses to answer any question pertinent to the subject under inquiry … it shall be the duty of the said President of the Senate or Speaker of the House, as the case may be, to certify, and he shall so certify, the statement of facts aforesaid under the seal of the Senate or House, as the case may be, to the appropriate United States attorney, whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action”.

In its Resolution 711 of 28 June 2012 against Holder, the House did properly present the statement of facts to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen, Jr. However, Machen did not pursue the case, despite the federal law stating that it was his duty “to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action”. The very next day, 29 June 2012, a news report said the Justice Department announced that it would not prosecute Eric Holder for his contempt of Congress [6]. That article quoted from a letter by the Deputy Attorney General, the number two person in the DOJ: “The Department has determined that the Attorney General’s response to the subpoena issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does not constitute a crime, and therefore the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General”.

That deputy attorney general was James M. Cole. Remember him? After the illegal domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) received public exposure in 2013, Cole was one of the people appearing before Congress to soft-pedal the whole squalid affair. Congress did not ask the NSA employees — including William Binney, Ed Loomis, and Kirk Wiebe — to testify. They complained in 2001 about what was happening, and were actually involved in designing the sophisticated surveillance program to gather information from foreign countries. But that surveillance program was turned inward domestically.

Here is the charge against Bannon filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to display or download–

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[1] http://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/503/all-info

[2] Title 2, U.S. Code, sections 192, 193, and 194.

Section 192. Refusal of witness to testify or produce papers.

http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title2-section192&num=0&edition=prelim

Section 193. Privilege of witnesses.

http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title2-section193&num=0&edition=prelim

Section 194. Certification of failure to testify or produce; grand jury action.

http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title2-section194&num=0&edition=prelim

[3] The plain text version of House Report 112-546.

http://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/112th-congress/house-report/546

[4] http://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-resolution/711/all-info

[5] http://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-resolution/706/all-info

[6] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/06/29/156002660/justice-will-not-prosecute-holder-for-contempt-of-congress