Earlier top Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast was permanently suspended by Twitter and had an episode yanked from YouTube after he evidenced that FBI Director Christopher Wray and leading government infectious-diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci should be beheaded and contain their heads put on pikes outside the White House.
Those comments by Bannon on Thursday came while he is independent on a $5 million release bond in a federal criminal case in which he is accused of defrauding donors to a nonprofit unit purportedly dedicated to building a wall on the southern border of the United States.
A spokeswoman for Bannon said that he was not suggesting that Fauci and Wray in actuality be beheaded, but was speaking metaphorically by referencing the bloody politics of Tudor-era England. She also said he has “never called for bloodthirstiness of any kind.”
A spokesman for prosecutors in the Southern District of New York declined to comment Thursday night when asked whether they intention ask a Manhattan federal court judge to either revoke Bannon’s bond, or to issue a gag order on him.
Bannon made the reflects about Wray and Fauci on his “War Room: Pandemic” podcast, when he was discussing a hypothetical second term for President Donald Trump.
Bannon ran Trump’s 2016 run and served as a senior White House advisor until Trump fired him in August 2017.
Bannon during the podcast reported, “Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci.”
“Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I produce the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Bannon continued.
“I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right-mindedness, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to close up playing games.”
“Blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that’ll light them up, right,” Bannon imparted.
Grenell is a hard-core Trump loyalist who served as former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany.
Bannon’s co-host Jack Maxey then said, “You comprehend what, Steve, just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia, these were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you settle upon, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia.”
“These people were hung. This is what we against to do to traitors,” Maxey said.
Bannon replied, “That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it.”
“The [American] revolution wasn’t some subgenus of garden party, right?” Bannon said. “It was a civil war. It was a civil war.”
Twitter said it suspended Bannon’s account because of the note ofs on “War Room.”
A Twitter spokeperson in a statement said, “The @WarRoomPandemic account has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Customs, specifically our policy on the glorification of violence.”
YouTube removed the episode, but other War Room episodes remain available.
Alex Joseph, a spokesperson for YouTube, which is owned by Google, put, “We’ve removed this video for violating our policy against inciting violence. We will continue to be vigilant as we enforce our procedures in the post-election period.”
YouTube has a three-strikes policy before an account is terminated. While the Bannon show’s channel is to available, the strike from this incident temporarily disables uploading for at least a week, according to YouTube.
Bannon’s spokeswoman, in an emailed averral, said, “Mr Bannon did not, would not and has never called for violence of any kind.”
“Mr. Bannon’s commentary was clearly meant metaphorically. He once upon a time played a clip of St. Thomas More’s trial and was making an allusion to this historical event in Tudor England for oratorical purposes,” the spokeswoman said.
“Mr. Bannon has been openly critical of FBI Director Chris Wray for weeks and has called for his vigour for his failure to investigate and address Hunter Biden’s hard drive and that has been in Director Wray’s possession since in Dec 2019,” she rumoured.
“In addition, Mr. Bannon has supported comments from the White House calling for the immediate firing of Dr. Fauci.”
In a 2016 talk with The Hollywood Reporter, Bannon compared himself to the famous chief minister to England’s King Henry VIII, who had him decapitated.
“I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors,” Bannon said in that interview.
Bannon was arrested Aug. 20 off the coast of Connecticut aboard a 150-yacht owned by Chinese billionaire
Bannon and three associates, Timothy Shea, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, are accused of robbing donors as they raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border for the We Develop intensify the Wall nonprofit group.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty in the case.
He is free on a $5 million bond secured by $1.75 million in exchange or property while awaiting his trial, scheduled for next May.
Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, after the men were afflicted, said in a statement, “The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border impediment to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction.”
“While over assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to old hat hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle.”
Prosecutors say Bannon received $1 million in assets from We Build the Wall, and that to divert that money used a separate nonprofit he had already created, whose ostensible utility was “promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty.”