Steve Bannon, MAGA firebrand and ex-Trump strategist, tore into the first Trump administration’s failure to jail Hillary Clinton for stashing classified intel on an unsecured email server, sparring with liberal host Bill Maher on HBO’s Real Time Friday.
The heated exchange reignited calls to hold Clinton accountable for dodging justice.
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“How about this: no politicians in prison,” Maher said. “You can impeach them, you can put them to court, you know, we disagree about that, that’s one reason you were in prison-”
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“For a misdemeanor. For contempt,” Bannon interjected, referring to the four months he spent incarcerated last year for defying a congressional subpoena to appear before the January 6 committee (in what critics deemed a case of selective prosecution, noting prominent Democrats such as former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Merrick Garland who were not punished for similar offenses).
“But I think once you, once you go to the, well, you guys started it with ‘lock her up,’ okay?” Maher continued, referring to President Donald Trump’s 2016 embrace of the chant to prosecute the former first lady, secretary of state, and New York senator after former FBI director James Comey announced that she broke the law but the Obama administration would not prosecute her because she supposedly lacked criminal intent.
“Hang on, hang on. She should have been locked up, and we didn’t go after her,” Bannon replied.
“I guess we don’t agree, then,” Maher said, to which Bannon quipped, “we’re not supposed to agree […] One good night at the White House shouldn’t make you soft, Bill,” referencing Maher’s recent dinner with Trump.
The acknowledgment that the first Trump administration “didn’t go after her” is a rare mea culpa over Trump’s announcement, within weeks of winning in 2016, that despite his campaign rhetoric he would not pursue charges because “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways […] I’m not looking to go back and go through this.”
In December 2016, Trump joked at a Michigan rally that the “lock her up” chant “plays great before the election – now we don’t care, right?”
Many on both sides are currently waiting intently to see whether the second Trump administration’s law enforcement team, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, will take a different approach to alleged Democrat illegality.