Is Steve Bannon a Sacrificial Lamb?

     It may sound like a ridiculous question, given Bannon's criminal history and one only need look back at his role in the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the We Build the Wall scam (which got him arrested summer last year on a superyacht worth $28,000,000 and owned by a shady Chinese billionaire), all the way down to his obvious involvement in last January's failed sacking of the Capitol.

     Now Bannon's in hot water again for having defied a Congressional subpoena and, after months, resulting in the DOJ having a warrant sworn out for his arrest on Friday. In one of those comical moments with which politics faithfully provides us, as Bannon was doing his white nationalist Real America's Voice podcast yesterday, news of his indictment was on a chyron on the TV behind him.

     We're obviously talking about a typical right wing career criminal (pardon the tautology), so how could such a shameless thief and insurrectionist by proxy be considered a sacrificial lamb? How in God's name could Bannon's moniker be in the same sentence as such an adorable young animal except if it described Bannon eating one alive?

     Well, the DOJ dragging its feet in having Bannon indicted, in the first place, is a good place to start. Perhaps the prevailing attitude in the DOJ was that doing so and swearing out an arrest warrant on him would bring about yet another January 6. But in fact no such thing happened Friday and no such thing will happen when Bannon is permitted to surrender himself for his arraignment on Monday.

     The January 6 Select Committee is already up to 16 subpoenas but Bannon and a handful of others were the first salvo of orders to appear before the committee. Of the rest of that first motley crew, Mark Meadows is currently allowed to negotiate with authorities, as if a Congressional subpoena is subject to negotiation, and Kash Patel and Dan Scavino, who also didn't appear as ordered, were allowed to postpone their testimony.

     Meanwhile, Trump is fighting a plainly losing battle by trying to keep over 770 documents from falling into the hands of the January 6 Committee (which they were supposed to get Friday) and trying to invoke executive privilege that he doesn't have to prevent Bannon's testimony.

     All outward appearances are that the government from the White House to Congress to the DOJ is collectively getting the dry heaves at the very thought of enforcing the law against the most vicious and arrogant pack of assclowns this side of 19th century Tammany Hall. It's just as easy to construe the Bannon indictment and warrant, which even carries an outrageous set of privileges not given to the rest of us, to see Bannon's as yet unrealized comeuppance as a mere warning to others.

     It seems to be having a salutary effect as Meadows and his lawyers immediately began negotiating with the investigators while Scavino and Patel are still allowed to lope around as free as wolves in northern Canada.

     But this should not be a mere object lesson, an example made out of Bannon to get others to comply. It can't be said the January 6 Committee and the DOJ has been going after Bannon and the rest with more than a tiny fraction of the zeal with which Republicans went after Bill and Hillary Clinton over a range of non offenses.

     Instead of letting these criminals negotiate their way out of jail as if playing a game of Monopoly, the Department of Justice ought to be going after them with all the red-toothed fervor with which congressional Republicans went after Hillary Clinton after Benghazi. Yes, the Department of Justice has subpoena enforcement powers but so does a congressional committee. It's time they began acting like it instead of lateraling those duties off to a seemingly toothless DOJ so it can then dither and dawdle for weeks over a criminal referral.