The House of Representatives has voted to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress, and the Justice Department will now decide whether to pursue charges against Bannon. The vote resulted from Bannon’s refusal to appear under subpoena before the House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and the role that President Trump might have played. In the past, Bannon has been accused of being anti-Semitic, an issue that particularly came up when President Trump appointed Bannon as Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor in 2016. At that time, which of the following people offered a defense of Bannon against the charge?

Steve Bannon by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

A. Joel Pollack, a Jewish senior editor-at-large at Breitbart News, the website which Bannon headed at that time, offered “proof” that Bannon was not anti-Semitic, based on his relationship with Bannon. “I have Saturdays off, Jewish holidays off and Steve Bannon always wishes me a ‘Shabbat shalom’ on Friday afternoon.”

B. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said of Bannon, “I’m thrilled with this appointment. You have an individual, Mr. Bannon, who’s basically creating the ideological aspects of where we’re going. But anti-Semitic? Trust me. I know an anti-Semite when I see one, which I often do. And Steve Bannon does not fit that category.”

C. President Trump responded to the charge of anti-Semitism at the time of Bannon’s appointment to the White House staff, saying, “Why would I appoint an anti-Semite to any job now that I have a Jewish son-in-law?”

D. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich defended Bannon against the charge in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation program, saying that Bannon’s past credentials prove he isn’t anti-Semitic. Said Gingrich, “He was a managing partner of Goldman Sachs. He was a Hollywood movie producer.”

E. Bannon was the director, and co-writer with Sarah Palin, of the 2011 documentary The Undefeated, which explored Palin’s life and political career. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Sarah Palin about the charge of anti-Semitism against Bannon. Palin replied, “I can see anti-Semites from my porch. But I can’t see Steve Bannon.”

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