Former chief strategist
Twitter permanently suspended an account associated with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon after he suggested in a video posted online Thursday that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.
Bannon made the comments calling for medieval violence during a livestream of his talk show and podcast, War Room: Pandemic.
“I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House. As a warning to federal bureaucrats: Either get with the program or you’re gone,” he said in the now-deleted video previously posted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. However, it has been recirculated through other accounts.
Totally normal, right? We know Fauci already has to have full-time security because of Trump’s bullying and lying.
CNN reported the video was viewed at least 200,000 times on Facebook before it was deleted.
Just great. Will Fauci now have to live in a safe house?
Bannon’s message comes as some members ofPresident Trump’s inner circle have amped up inflammatoryrhetoric while the election results remain unresolved. Donald Trump Jr. said this week the president should “go to total war” over the election.
Meaning Trump should stage a fascist coup and become an outright dictator.
On Friday, a prominent lawyer who was defending Mr. Bannon against fraud charges in federal court in Manhattan abruptly moved to drop him as a client, one person familiar with the matter said.
“Mr. Bannon is in the process of retaining new counsel,” the lawyer, William A. Burck, said in a brief letter to the court, giving no explanation.
No explanation required.
Since August, Mr. Bannon has been fighting the criminal charges lodged against him by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the case in which Mr. Burck has been his lawyer.
Mr. Bannon was arrested on charges of defrauding donors to a campaign to privately fund a wall on the United States’ border with Mexico, one of Mr. Trump’s signature political promises.
The prosecutors have charged that Mr. Bannon and three co-defendants, while pledging publicly not to take any of the money raised for themselves, siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for travel, hotels, personal credit card debt and other expenses.
What a mensch, huh?
Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University School of Law, said speaking generally, “Lawyers will withdraw when a client’s behavior sabotages the lawyer’s work on the client’s behalf.”
Mr. Gillers said he did not know why Mr. Burck was seeking to withdraw from Mr. Bannon’s case, but he added: “Bannon’s public comments made Burck’s job more difficult. Burck was hired to fight the prosecutors and should not also have to do battle with his own client.”
Smart guy, Bannon.
H/t iknklast
Updating to add, because it’s scathing and apt and true:
“Get with the program, or else …”
That’s not the job. Federal employees are supposed to do their job, no matter what the chief executive says. They are supposed to do unbiased work and report the actual facts, the truth, to the chief executive. The chief executive is not entitled to punish federal employees for telling the truth and doing their jobs.
Truth. I was wishing I’d said that in the post. It’s such an outrageous thing to say…”get with the program.” No!!
I was hoping Fauci had security. He shouldn’t need it, but with Trump as president…maybe we all need full time security.
Beheading people who displease? I wasn’t aware that Bannon is an Islamic extremist.
At least, it’s useful that he said it out loud. There was little (if any) room for doubt before, but now we know for sure where he’s at. Fucking fascist.
Harald, he’s a medieval fascist. Beheading is so uncommon anymore…at least outside of Islamist circles.