Former presidential advisor and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon had his show suspended from Twitter and an episode removed by YouTube after calling for violence against FBI director Christopher Wray and the government’s leading pandemic expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Bannon, speaking with co-host Jack Maxey, was discussing what Trump should do in a hypothetical second term. He suggested firing Wray and Fauci, but then went further, saying “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, 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.”
This may strike one at first as mere hyperbole — one may say “we want his head on a platter” and not really be suggesting they actually behead anyone. But the conversation continued and seemed to be more in earnest than it first appeared:
Maxey: Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.
Bannon: That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war.
Whether one considers this only nostalgia for the good old days of mob justice or an actual call to bring those days back, the exchange seems to have been enough for moderators at YouTube and Twitter to come down hard on the pair’s makeshift broadcast.
Twitter confirmed that it has “permanently suspended” (i.e. it can be appealed but won’t be restored automatically) the account for violating the rule against glorifying violence.
Steve Bannon, the former adviser to President Donald Trump, has called for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to be arrested for covering up the president's posts.
The social media platform placed warning labels and flags over six of Trump's 16 tweets yesterday, saying the content was "disputed" and could be misleading about an election still in progress, with the posts in violation of the site's civic integrity policy.
Bannon fumed about the enforcement while speaking during an episode of his podcast War Room: Pandemic, saying Twitter was suppressing the president's speech. His comments were first reported by media watchdog Media Matters for America.
"They're taking down the president of the United States," Bannon, who served as a top aide in the White House for eight months in 2017, said during the broadcast. "If the president of the United States does not call Bill Barr now, today, this moment—what is it? Section 232 of the Defense Act—and send U.S. marshals out to San Francisco and arrest Jack Dorsey today.
The criminal defense lawyers for former top Trump advisor Steve Bannon will seek to withdraw from the case, just a day after Bannon discussed having FBI Director Christopher Wray and federal infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci beheaded.
“Mr. Bannon is in the process of retaining new counsel, and [the firm of] Quinn Emanuel intends to move to withdraw,” wrote his lead attorney, William Burck, in the filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where Bannon is scheduled to go on trial next May.
Burck on Friday asked for a three-week continuance of a status conference in the case, which currently is scheduled for Monday.
“Mr. Bannon respectfully requests that the status conference in this matter be adjourned for three weeks so that he may formally retain new counsel,” Burck wrote.
