Politico: “Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress greeted the indictment of Steve Bannon with a warning: It’s payback time once we take back the House. But getting revenge won’t be so simple. Yet Bannon’s case may well have no bearing on the GOP enthusiasm for hauling in the Biden White House. Legal experts say the Bannon indictment stands apart from nearly any other contempt of Congress charge in memory – from the brazenness of his defiance to his weak claim of executive privilege, which is meant to protect presidential talks with top advisers, not a private citizen’s help for a former president trying to overturn the results of an election.”

“‘If Ron Klain ever participates in a violent insurrection against the union, then I hope they would bring him in,’ said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the Jan. 6 select committee. ‘What you have is a friend of a former president who is asserting an executive privilege that doesn’t apply to him. It’s absurd, and I would hope that our GOP colleagues understand that there is no legal basis for what Steve Bannon is saying.’ There’s another key issue that could frustrate Republicans’ big oversight plans for 2023: Biden will still be president. His authority to waive executive privilege – or uphold it, in the case of his own aides – carries significant legal weight until his term is up. ‘That is an apples and helicopters situation,’ said national security attorney Kel McClanahan of the GOP effort to compare Bannon’s situation to a future demand for testimony from Klain, Sullivan or others. ‘The person in power, whether they be Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians or Greens – when they own the White House, they own executive privilege, full stop.'”