Steve Bannon has been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and will turn himself in today. Bannon was indicted on charges Trump pardoned him for before Trump left office.
New York has laws that prevent this type of double jeopardy. A judge threw out a recent case when a New York prosecutor pulled the same stunt with Paul Manafort. Bannon remained defiant saying:
“The Soros-backed DA has now decided to pursue phony charges against me 60 days before the midterm election because WarRoom is the major source of the Maga grassroots movement.
“The SDNY did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election.
“It didn’t work then, it certainly won’t work now.
“This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
“I am proud to be a leading voice on protecting our borders and building a wall to keep our country safe from drugs and violent criminals.
“They are coming after all of us, not only President Trump and myself. I am never going to stop fighting.”
In fact, I have not yet begun to fight.
“They will have to kill me first.”
From The AP:
A president can only pardon federal crimes, not state offenses, but that doesn’t mean state-level prosecutors have carte blanche to try similar cases.
In 2019, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. brought state mortgage fraud charges against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort in what was widely seen as an attempt to hedge against a possible pardon.
But a judge threw the case out on double jeopardy grounds, finding that it was too similar to a federal case that resulted in Manafort’s conviction. (Manafort was later pardoned by Trump).
While Manafort’s New York case was pending, New York eased its double jeopardy protections, ensuring that state-level prosecutors could pursue charges against anyone granted a presidential pardon for similar federal crimes.
