Criminal Injustice System

be no repercussions in doing so. Well, Chair of the one six Insurrection Commission, Benny Thompson has decided that, guess what, Bannon, you do have to comply with congressional subpoenas. And tomorrow we're going to be seeing a vote in the Commission and then in the entire House that is going to recommend that Steve Bannon be processed for criminal charges and

that will go to the US District Attorney. So here's the thing, folks, that is coming up for me and continues to come up, and in my conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner, we will talk about this But here's the reality. The reality is this, which we all know, but it's becoming so damn obvious and stark, and what is continuing to piss me off is that we do

nothing about it. Our criminal justice system has multiple tiers, and depending on your wealth, depending on your class, depending on your race, depending on your gender, depending on your sexual orientation or your gender identity, you get placed in different tiers. And who do we know exists at the top. Well, that would be rich, wealthy cis gender, straight white men who have powerful connections and can do whatever the fuck

they want. You know, here's the thing I wanted to know. Okay, so Benny Thompson is saying we're going to pursue criminal charges, then will we see a US Marshall go pounding on fucking Steve Bannon's door, dragging his drunken ass out and sitting him in a chair at Congress. No, we won't

see that, do you know? When we do see that? However, when we do see police kick in the door of people when they think that you know, they have drugs, or they think that you know there is a search out for them, or a warrant, right, a warrant out for their arrest. That's what happened in the Brianna Taylor case.

If you all remember the Louisville, Kentucky, young black woman who was asleep in her bed and then was riddled with bullets and killed in her sleep because they were supposedly a warrant out for her ex boyfriend, which no longer lived in that home, right, but the cops felt the need to kick in the door and shoot it up. They were wrong, they had the wrong address. But Brianna Taylor is dead. No one has faced accountability or responsibility for that, because we know that in this country, black

lives do not matter. We know that in this country, if Brianna Taylor had been a Steve Bannon type, if she had been wealthy, if she had been white, that the cops probably would have called her ahead of time and asked if it was the right time for them to come over, and then she would have been able to talk her way out of it or put her very high paid lawyer on the phone to decide and determine when and if and how she was going to

cooperate with authorities. You see, black and brown people and low income people in this country don't get choices, right, they are forced to adhere to a legal system that doesn't have their humanity, their dignity in mind. But you see with Steve Bannon, oh we gotta follow the law. We got to go through it with a fine tooth comb. We have to make sure that there's no wavering because we know that when you go after the wealthy and the powerful and the well connected white men of the world,

then they come back at you ten times fold. And you see Democrats in this instance are operating in the way that they always have, which is through fear. Oh well, what happens when Republicans gain power? What happens you know to us? So we have to really walk a fine line here. Well, here's the deal. You know what will happen. Republicans, whether using the law or doing criminal shit, are going to stomp you into the ground like they did over

the last four years under Donald Trump. You clearly didn't learn your lesson there, and you clearly aren't learning your lessons right now. You think that what they're going to comply and that you get to look blustery in the press, and then that is actually akin to you taking real

hard action. Well, in my conversation, with Glenn Kirshner. He will go over the fact that there's a true two track system that Congress can be taking right now, one of which is criminal content, the other one is inherent where they could throw his ass in jail for up to thirty days or up to a year. Right and people say, well, that's a law that hasn't been used in a hundred years, So the fuck what, It's still

a law that's on the books. Use the power that the people gave you, because you have no problem using the power of the law to beat and suppress and contort black people and brown people, right push them into the ground, push them further into the margins of society. Give them minimum maximum sentences, which we just saw that Governor Gavin Newsom got rid of in California, among the myriad of things that he is doing. You know why, because we love to throw the book at low income

people and people of color. Glen will talk to us in this interview about the fact that you know the DC prison system right where you hold people awaiting trial, those jails are disgusting, they're ininhabitable. He's talked about this, and many people have talked about this for decades, but we don't care how black and brown people are treated in our prison system because you know, it's set up

for their punishment. But now all of a sudden, we have all of these white insurrectionists that are being held and now judges want to do something about the prison system and hold these prisons accountable for their conditions. Well, why the fuck didn't you do that before? Oh, that's right, because once again, black lives don't matter. Poor people's lives don't matter, and you see, our systems are set up

to punish them to keep them down. You see, when low level criminals do shit, right, what we find to be true, it's at oftentimes the stealing, the drug dealing. Those things are being done as a mode of survival. Am I saying it should happen, No, and that people

shouldn't be held accountable. Of course not. But what I am saying is that you see, they're acting out of desperation because they are trying to exist in a capitalistic system that wants to grind them to a halt right, that wants to ensure that they stay on the bottom so that they can be the foundation for those that are on the top. That we don't provide jobs or resources, or education and housing, just the basics so that people

can thrive. No, we push them into situations where they feel like they have no fucking options, and so the harm that they end up doing is generally to themselves, to their families. Right. But you see the harm that Steve and Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, Cash Patel, David Skia, like all of these Trumpers. You see the harm that they did, the embezzlement, the extortion, the cruelty in their policies that harmed the entire country, That harms our democracy,

which is on the brink. But we have to work through certain procedures to make sure that we are following the law to make sure that the criminal Steve Bannon right, sees due process. What about everybody else's fucking due process. You know what we've been shown over the past five years, We've been shown just exactly how broken our democracy is, how unjust our criminal justice system is, and how unwilling

our elected officials are to do any goddamn thing. Eight months of quote unquote negotiations were happening between Senator Corey Booker and Tim Scott, the Republican Eight months of bullshit performative efforts to do something about policing in this country. After we all collectively watched George Floyd have his life pressed out of him in broad fucking daylight, we thought this was going to be the tipping point. Certainly, this can't be acceptable and we must be able to move on.

But what did the media do and what did police do? Oh? They decided to hang out Derek Chauvin as that bad apple. He doesn't represent us really because he was the one that was doing the trainings for other police officers. He was the one that was teaching them the ropes for close to twenty years of his work in the police department. So how is he not you? He is emblematic of the entirety of our justice system, of our policing system.

But they wanted to hang him out to dry to assuage us right and lull us into the belief that, you know, it's just a few bad apples. But as I've said on this show and on others, it isn't a few bad apples. It's a few bad apples that are picked from a poisonous orchard that spans the entirety of this country from sea to shining sea. But our politicians given this momentous opportunity to actually do something to show the American people that all people right deserve due process,

deserve compassion. I look all the time around New York whenever I see police officers and they see their cars rolling by, you know, their fucking motto about courtesy and protection and respect, that's what they have on the side of their cars. And it's laughable. It's almost an insult to those communities that they patrol with such cruelty, with

such violence, with such content. But once again, our congressional leaders fail to do anything that would actually help people, that would make us believe that our tax dollars are going to better our lives, not just pad the pockets of their friends, the wealthy that want to do champagne toasts in front of their little vacations into space that are costing tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars that could be used, you know, to help

our strengthen our social safety nets, to strengthen ourblic education system, healthcare, to fight against climate change. But we don't tax the wealthy in this country. We don't even prosecute the wealthy

in this country when they do shady shit. Folks. The Pandora Papers, which the international consortium of journalists six hundred plush journalists around so many countries, collectively working together to expose just how unequal our world really is, how the rich and the wealthy are able to skirt the laws to work for them so that they don't have to pay taxes, so that they can have these offshore places

that harbor all of their wealth. We are learning about this, and you would think that it would be breaking news. You would think that it would be a consistent story. It's not. It has disappeared because we just shrug off the that the rich and the wealthy and the powerful are going to get to do whatever the fuck they want. And oh, if I were like them, if I were in their shoes, i'd do the same thing. You see. But I wouldn't, and neither would most of you, because

we function on conscience. We believe right in the collective. We're always told about pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and the retort to that is, well, what if you don't have boots? It's always, oh, let's celebrate the uber wealthy because they did it. Alone. I remember seeing the youngest Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, on the cover of four Self

Made Billionaire. How's that bitch? Self made? She came from a rich, white, wealthy family, right well connected, that had access to all of the advisors, all of the top business people, all of the media doors swing open? How is that self made? What did she work herself up from? But that's the fairy tale and the lie that we tell ourselves about the wealthy. Oh my god, they're to be celebrated. They're to be celebrated and revered for all

of the things that they have done. Does anybody ever talk about the fucking hands up that they continue to get that they got from the jump. These aren't people that should be celebrated. Of course, you can do amazing things when you have a fucking amazing foundation and all the money in the world, or the right name and the money in the world. And then you want to turn around and give the rest of us tips on

how to be successful, Go fuck yourself. I am so tired of those fucking stories from the uber wealthy and the well connected wanting to tell the peons that you

too can become a self made millionaire. It just takes discipline. Oh, I wake up early in the morning, But we don't talk about the family that also wakes up early in the morning, the parents that are working two and three jobs, that are taking public at transportation across hundreds of miles because they can't afford a car to go from one job to the next, that both are paying minimum wage

and combined are barely enough to get by. They don't talk about the fact that that parent, those people are doing the best that they can to also nurture their children in a broken public school system that is probably situated in a place that can already tell you that the life expectancy of their children is decades off from their wealthier counterparts across the tracks. We don't revere those people that are literally making something out of nothing every

single day. No, we tell ourselves that the poor deserve to be poor, that they're just lazy, and if only they would take and adhere to the tips and tricks of the uber wealthy, then they too would have something. But they don't have the right mindset. It takes an extraordinary type of person to be able to wake up day in and day out, put a smile on your face, work service jobs that are poorly paid. People are largely disrespected and continue to toil in day and day out,

just trying to put one foot in front of the other. That, to me, is your success story, the fact that they continue to march forward against a system, against a system that was not built for their success. Talk to me about the low income parents, the single mom that is able to get a degree against all odds, a degree that will most likely put them further into debt. But what choices do they have. America doesn't give many. So you get a degree, you put yourself into death because

you want to provide better for your kids. We don't celebrate that. We celebrate those that were born with silver spoons in their mouths. We celebrate their connections and call them ambitious. You've been given everything. If you cannot succeed when literally the field has been cleared for you, then you are fucking pathetic. But those are not people to me that should be celebrated and cheered on. I don't

want their advice. It is getting so difficult. It's becoming so difficult to be able to look for little streaks of hope. We have workers. At the end of last week, truck drivers that have decided to strike. We're seeing strikes pop up all across industry. While people are telling us, Oh, there's a worker's shortage, There isn't a worker's shortage, folks.

There is a shortage of empathetic employers. There is a shortage of good quality jobs where you are not treated like trash, that are paying you a living wage, that are providing health benefits. And what we are seeing right now is workers say fuck you pay me. And I continue to say, I want to see strikes across industry. I want all workers to revolt until they are given live wages and not just fucking living wages. Why are

we always going after the bare fucking minimum. Why aren't we setting up people so that they can thrive and see that that trickle down is actually what it is that we need in order to push forward. As one of the superpowers, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, we are as powerful as our weakest links, except we are purposefully creating breaks in the links because we just don't want to tell the truth that we only want

white people to thrive, we only want their success. And then we gas like the funk out of everybody else and make it believe that the only reason why you don't have all of the things that you want is because of your own actions and not the actions and the policies that were created to ensure you're suffering. This should be a fucking wake up moment for us all.

This should be an opportunity that Donald Trump and the Republicans greed and cruelty exposed all the broken pieces of America, all of the gaps that need to be filled, all of the laws that need to be fixed in order to have a thriving democracy, not just one that is doing the bare minimum. We need to demand more. And

maybe that isn't with marches. Maybe it's with walkouts. Maybe we need to flip the script on those that are powerful, because the only reason why they have power and they have wealth is because of how they have squeezed the little people. How they have squeezed us of our economic viability, how they have squeezed us of our hope. We still do have power. We are the cogs in the machine that can grind the machine to a halt if we

so choose as a collective our time. Dear friends, Oh it is on the horizon, I see it coming and I hope that you do too. Coming up next is my conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner about the latest moves that the one six Commission is doing and whether or not we are going to see Steve Bannon in cuffs or Donald Trump in cuffs or Mark Meadows in

cuffs any fucking time soon. Folks. You know that when I have the opportunity to be joined by our friend MSNBC legal analysts and the host of Justice Matters, Glenn Kirshner, I am always thrilled. Glenn. You have thirty years of federal prosecutorial skill underneath your belt, and any time that news breaks about the direction of Trump's acolytes, sycophants and subpoenas comes, I'm always I'm like a kid in a

candy store, just waiting to dive in with you. Each week tell us breaking news as and I don't know why it's breaking, because we all knew how this was going to roll out, that Steve Bannon is bucking the subpoena, the request for documents, and his presence at a deposition for the one six Commission they head. The chair of that commission, Benny Thompson, had signaled before, but definitely said it this week. We are going after criminal charges. No one has the right to just turn their back on

a congressional subpoena. What we are learning the American people is that the cops are not going to bang on Steve Bannon's door, are they. We're not going to see him in handcuffs, doing a purp walk and being brought into Congress and sat down in a seat. Tell us why that isn't going to happen. Well, in part, it's not happening because Congress is not getting as aggressive as it is legally entitled to get. So, yeah, breaking news. Steve Bannon's still a criminal, and Congress doesn't seem to

be all that excited about holding him to account. Here's what's going on right now, and it is a positive development because I think I can say that at least the justice train is preparing to leave the station sometime soon. Right, Here's what's happening with Bannon. He just thumbed his nose at congressional subpoenas, both for documents and for testimony. We all knew he would. So Congress has three ways to

deal with civil enforcement. Throw that one in the garbage can, because that's what enabled Don McGann to run out the clock from more than two years. Civil enforcement is dead as a vehicle to enforce congressional subpoenas because the courts allow themselves to be weaponized. The delay in the courts system that leaves us with two alternatives. Congress has thus far chosen one criminal contempt referral. Here's what that looks

like on Tuesday. And I am told, I am not an expert on the rules of Congress, that they have to give three days advanced time before they set this vote. So it sounds like they're doing it promptly. They've set the vote for Tuesday. They will vote to hold him in contempt. That will get referred to the Department of Justice, specifically the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

And here's how the law reads. The federal law says, once it is referred to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, the US Attorney shall present it to the grand jury for its action. That action will look like criminal indictment of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress. That here's the good news, Danielle, and don't let me forget to talk about the third vehicle they have inherent contempt, because I'm always excited to talk about inherent contempt and

why Congress is not using it. But here's the good news about him being indicted, being criminally referred for contempt. Unlike Don McGann, Unlike Donald Trump when he's fighting the production of his tax returns in his financial documents, which which inspires endless litigation up and down the appellate courts, a defendant like Steve Bennon doesn't control the delay in his own criminal prosecution. So this is something that can actually happen promptly. And let me tell you what the

law is. The Speedy Trial Act says, from the day we indict somebody, the prosecutors have seventy days to bring him to trial. Now, often the parties put into delay that and trials in federal court rarely proceed within seventy days of indictment. But that's what the law says, and prosecutors can embrace that law and they can promptly take Bannon to trial get him convicted. The punishment for one count of contempt of Congress is no less than thirty days in jail. No more than one year in jail. Now,

what is the end goal here? Is it to really produce truthful testimony from Steve Bannon. Steve Bennon is never going to testify truthfully if it requires him to incriminate Donald Trump. So a couple of ways this could play out. If he's indicted, he could negotiate a plea that says, Okay, give me probation and tomorrow I will walk into Congress and testify truthfully against Donald Trump. Unlikely, but that is one of the potential outcomes of this kind of a

criminal referral. But the other thing that you accomplish by referring Steve Bennon for prosecution and putting him in jail for up to a year is all of a sudden Cash Patel and Mark Meadows are like, uh, okay, I'll come in and testify, right because they're not likely to go to jail for a year the way Steve Bannon might be inclined to. So there are a couple of different advantages to going this route, even if those advantages don't really include getting truthful testimony before Congress out of

a guy like Steve Bannon. Let me go back to inherent contempt because you asked a perfect question. We all knew this was coming. Why isn't somebody locking up Bannon, bringing him to the Select Committee and forcing him to testify? There is this lawful power of inherent contempt of Congress that enables Congress to do just that. Let me read what the Supreme Court said two hundred years ago about

Congress's power of contempt. The Supreme Court emphasized the importance and value of Congress's contempt power in eighteen twenty one, in the case of Anderson versus Down, The Court said Congress's power to quote hold someone in contempt is essential to ensure that Congress is not exposed to every indignity that rudeness, caprice, or even conspiracy may make against it, And the courts in the nineteen twenties in the nineteen

thirties affirmed that Congress's inherent power of contempt locking somebody up and forcing them to testify is lawful and constitutional. Why in the world is in Congress doing it? Danielle, If we look back at the end of our republic and we say, you know what, Congress never pulled the inherent contempt weapon out of its arsenal to try to use it to defend our democracy. How in the world is everybody going to feel about that? So I have said,

proceed on two tracks. Criminal referral. Let's put Bannon in prison for a year for the crime he just committed, contempt of Congress and inherent contempt. Let's also try to put his butt in the chair right now, Congress, you have the tool, use it? What Glenn okay, let let's which I never do on this show, but I have a desire to today, Let's play Devil's advocate. What is what? What could possibly be the negative response? What do you think that the long game is for Congress as to

why they wouldn't want to use inherent contempt? Because let's be clear, Democrats only work in reaction, right, They don't ever assert anything. That's their problem, and that's the difference between Democrats and Republicans. One of the many in this instance. I believe that they continually look at, well, what happens when we're not in power, and then Republicans are in power, and then they have the same ability, and then they

use it against us. What is your response to the tepidness with which Democrats react to the ability to use all the power that the Constitution has granted them. Okay, so, first of all, the Republicans will crush the Democrats by any means necessary, lawful and unlawful, once they retake power. So I'm not persuaded by the argument that if we do something aggressive, lawful but aggressive, then the Republicans will do it to us. Guess what They're gonna do it

and they're gonna do unlawful stuff. Do you yet we saw Trump and company do it, So please don't make that argument to me Democrats as a reason not to act. Here are the two reasons that I can see why they will not pull inherent contempt out of their toolbox. One is political, one is legal. The political reason is the one you just articulated. We would seem maybe not just we are worried that the Republicans will do the

same to us. We're afraid of being perceived by our bass heavy handed, overreaching, you know, punishing people and not giving them their due process rights, to which I respond, that's the exact wrong calculation, because if you don't do everything you can to save your democracy, that's where you're going to alienate your base. Take it from me, Take it from you. Right, here's the legal that's the political right. The legal is people say, and there's been some stuff

on the Twitter sphere about this. Well, it hasn't been used in a hundred years, since the nineteen thirties, and we don't really have the processes in place. So what we need to do is put together committees and task forces and study it and come up with proposals and try to adopt those proposals and maybe five years from now it will be pristine enough for us to try it.

And otherwise there's too much litigative risk. Guess what you do all that for five years and you put if we still have a democracy and put all those process yeah, centers, yeah, and safeguards in place. There's still litigative risk because the first time you do it again after a hundred years of not doing it, it's going to get attacked in court. Let's do it now, the Supreme Court, Danielle has said, it's a lawful tool of Congress. Let's do it now.

Let's take the litigative risk now. If not now, when is going to be a more important moment. Yeah, this litigative risk now, I predict we will win on the litigation risk front because we've got Supreme Court precedents saying we can do it. The timidity and the handwringing and the legal naval gazing will kill us, Danielle, and it's

killing our democracy. And there's no argument, there's no persuasive argument that they should leave inherent contempt in their toolbox, not take it out, not dust it off, and not start to use it. No argument. That is it. For today's Woke After Daily podcast. To hear more from today's show, including my full interview with Glenn Kirshner, Support me on Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash Woke AF Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.