Former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon is reportedly expected to surrender to New York state prosecutors on Thursday to face a new criminal indictment.
This comes just weeks after a federal jury convicted him of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for intentionally defying a subpoena related to the assault on the US Capitol last year.
The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Mr Bannon’s prosecution is likely to mirror aspects of the federal case in which the former Trump political adviser was pardoned. Mr Trump had pardoned Mr Bannon on federal fraud charges before leaving office.
Presidential pardons, however, do not apply to state investigations.
At least three people familiar with the matter have said Mr Bannon is expected to turn himself in on Thursday, the Post report said.
Soon after Mr Trump’s pardon, the Manhattan district attorney’s office opened an investigation into Mr Bannon and the crowd-fundraising effort called “We Build The Wall”.
In recent months, several close allies of Mr Bannon have been subpoenaed to testify before a New York state grand jury investigating his fundraising for a private border wall effort.
Meanwhile, Mr Bannon issued a statement late on Tuesday this week in which he called the indictment “phony charges” and “nothing more than a partisan political weaponisation 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,” he added.
“They are coming after all of us, not only Present 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.”
Mr Bannon also said the southern district of New York “did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election” and said it “didn’t work then, it certainly won’t work now”.
The state case could be handled in New York State Supreme Court by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg but there has not been a confirmation of this from him, said the Post report.
